Answer these 3 questions before allowing Facebook at work

Posted on March 11, 2011 in Social Media in Wichita Kansas by JuggleMedia

employee squabblings, Social Media in Wichita, social media policy

Your employees are starting to grumble and you’re starting to hear more and more about how social networks can help your business grow. The natural course of action would be to allow your employees to use Facebook to interact. It’s a win-win, right? They stop complaining and you get more business.

WHOA THERE! Not the case! Well, it could be if you know the answer to these three questions first.

1. What’s YOUR policy?

Yesterday, Chrysler fired their social media agency because one of the individuals that handled the Chrysler Twitter Account accidentally used an explicative while tweeting. That person thought that they were logged into their own individual account when tweeting the f-bomb. (Read more here)

You simply must have a social media policy for any individual acting on you behalf, as well as anything that is said by your employees during work hours. It protects you and gives you a tiny amount of protection. If employees know that they can in fact be fired because of their social behavior during work hours, they may act more professionally.

2. What’s THEIR purpose?

Are you opening up Facebook and Twitter to be more productive or to silence those squabbles? Are you going to lose productivity? Are you going to have a zoned-out secretary stuck on YouTube? Depends. Why are they there?

Two eyes watching all the social media activity around Wichita is better than one. A team of employees is much better than two. That team will be totally lost and ineffective without knowing their purpose. You must have clearly defined objectives for the employees using social media channels during work hours.

3. What’s THE plan?

You tell me? Seriously. You are the business owner or manager. It’s your team. At JuggleMedia, we with you to create a sweet plan for social media, but without you standing behind it, it’ll never fly.

So learn what the individual networks can do for your business. Each business type can use different aspects of the same social network to produce results.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube are all incredible tools for you as a business owner to learn about, understand and embrace. You must know your reason for not wanting to open up social media channels to all your employees. Start with these three questions to begin formulating your plan. What’s the plan?

Of course, if you need help with all of this crazy social media stuff in Wichita, click here to contact us.