IS SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY A BARRIER TO WIDER EMPLOYEE CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT ?

XeeMe.com/Peter Finney

Currently lives in the UK

Worked globally over 27 years

Strategic consultant

A thinker, innovator, technologist

Helping customers realise business value from emerging products and technology

XeeMe.com/peterfinney

Peter Finney

Social Media today

The lines between public and private, personal and professional are becoming blurred on

social networks

Companies Fear

Allowing employees to engage in dialogue with their customers on social media

What if they engage in

discourse, rumours or speculation, are unethical, personal insults, obscenity, topics that may be considered offensive or inflammatory etc.

Impact

This could lead to Viral negative sentiment

Potentially wiping out the company reputation

Damaging the brand

Compliance and lawful issues

Security breaches

and for the employee Loss of employment

Legal ramifications

How do they act

Companies either

stand back and just listen to the social media channels

only allow a few approved employees to engage in customer dialogue via social media

marketing/PR, contact centre

Bring in Policy / Guidelines

Adopt guidelines for social networking sites

Some examples compiled by the Social Media Academy

http://www.socialmedia-academy.com/index.php/resources/social-media-guide-lines/

BUT Do guidelines stop Human error ?

NO !

Barrier to wider engagement?

Are our employees now fearful of doing the wrong thing ?

Does this drive them to stand back

and in some cases not engage in customer dialogue at all via social media

What about TRUST ?

Would a doctor mention a patients personal details on-line

or discuss a medical case anonymously

Would Recommendations work?

A course of action that is advisable

Can we manage potential mistakes by monitoring and correcting on-line errors?

Build recommendations with our employees

“Let them learn by their mistakes”

Would this drive wider employee engagement with our customers ?

Wide Employee ECO system

Is the social voice of our company only a few employees ?

Some will gel other not with customers

Are we missing the untapped social network reach and sales potential of our employee base

What do you think ?

Check out the Blog and comment …

http://peterfinney.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/social-media-policy-is-this-a-barrier-to-wider-employee-customer-engagement/

End of presentation