Interview with Andrew W Morse

AW: Should companies allow employees to have access to social networking sites?

 

AM: Companies should develop an enterprise-wide policy (we call it an 'eStrategy') for internal and external interaction with all stakeholders. This eStrategy needs to consider the benefits of social and professional networking and determine an integrated corporate approach to sites such as: Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, Twitter, YouTube, Xing and others which are language or sector specific.

 

AW: Do you think it limits productivity? What guidelines should be set in place if so?

 

AM: Select employees should be appointed to be bloggers, twitterers, video uploaders on behalf of the company. Others may be allowed access to social networking sites during work hours to promote products and services, and to monitor and respond to complaints, negative blogs, etc.

 

However, not all employees need to have access and to avoid a reduction in productivity, access or time online, should be predetermined and managed. Some companies will simply block a site from the network, others may allocate an aggregate amount of time per day. This will be specific to the business.

 

The approach will vary considerably, due to the company's philosophy. For instance some recruiters use LinkedIn extensively (many LIONs are recruiters), and yet others do not us it at all and are afraid that their employees will capitalise on building a network and then take this asset with them to set up in competition!

 

The most important step is to recognise that there are massive benefits in social and professional networking, and to develop an eStrategy to capitalise on these.

 

Links:

[ http://www.digital-tsunami.com|leo://plh/http%3A*3*3www%2Edigital-tsunami%2Ecom/rOMK ]

 

 

Andrew W Morse – Founder of Digital Tsunami “Communications Evolution”