A great post by Jeremiah Owyang over at PodTech.net but on a number of levels misses what I feel is the main corporate issue with the whole area of social media – management of information that has the potential to damage the company reputation or relationships in some way.
The problem with the diner party conversation analogy he mentions that human beings when communicating face-to-face rely on less than 10% on the words themselves and mostly use non-verbal clues. You can see when someone is uncomfortable, upset or amused by what you say and immediately retract or edit it. Live performers and presenters are able to pick-up on this and interact with the audience. On the phone we lose visual clues but by really listening we can pick up audio clues on how our message is being received. When we know someone very well we can even sense when things are not 100% by their general behaviour. How they are standing, looking, breathing and the pause before they say a word - long, short and what sort of pause? Everything helps carry the real message. The words may not.
Written communication carries very few signals and so it leads to all sorts of misunderstandings. Heck – the legal profession earns a fortune in litigation fees sorting out written contractual obligations.
The biggest problem with blogs is their very power. They get distributed far and wide very fast and how it is written is just as important as what was or was not written. Trying to retract a post is not like withdrawing a comment made in a conversation. Once out there RSS feeds and WOM marketing distribute far and wide. You can pull the post but it is out there gaining momentum. Readers will look at this and re-act accordingly. If they do or do not do something as a result of reading a blog who is potentially legally liable? The other day Apple’s stock suffered a $4b drop because of a rumour (later found false) that the iPhone had been delayed. It started from a ‘leaked’ Apple internal e-mail. How many people sold Apple shares as their value dropped or even bought because they dropped? What if an Apple employee had blogged this rather than a 3rd party blogger? Would Apple be liable? What if Apple executives have an automatic buy or sell setting with their brokers based upon a certain price? How many people would feel Apple were guilty in some way of engineering the fall to get shares cheaper or minimise losses? Certainly in the UK that would be classed as potential ‘insider trading’ and trigger an investigation by the authorities which would cost the company a damaged reputation and probably further share value decline. What a mess and it all happened in minutes due to the power of blogs and the internet.
Companies as legal entities have responsibilities (many legal) to all stakeholders – employees, shareholders, the local community, their industry and business partners and financial investors. Legally they are obliged to disclose certain information in certain ways at specific times. Other times they are not supposed to be mentioning anything financial as it is in the 'quiet period' before an earnings statement.
There has to be guidelines. I agree with Jeremiah that if control is too tight it risks killing the conversation but equally if it is a free-for-all it risks killing the company or certainly its reputation.
Jeremiah uses the phrase Air Traffic Tower. He avoids using the 'C' word - 'control' as he is concerned the blogging purist community will be unhappy. I am not so worried. Society need boundaries and controls. His suggestion is good as you need ‘best practice’ that everyone follows for the safety of all. Imagine if everyone could do what they wanted, when, where and how at the airport. A disaster waiting to happen? I don't know about you but I feel happier knowing someone is helping the pilot decide when and where to land, where to park and organising which door we exit by. I am also happy that Air Traffic tells pilots where to taxi and what run way to take off rather than just letting the crew pick and choose. I am sure the pilot and co-pilot will not endanger us deliberately but accidents do happen.
For large companies there has to be guidelines and policies on who can talk about what subjects and when. What is ‘off limits’ and why. It has to be clearly understood what the legal status and potential liability is of these comments (private or business blog – official view or private view).
During World War 2 this was a big issue for Governments. How to make local populations aware of the potential impact of ‘loose talk’ at diner parties and other social settings. From 1940 onwards massive poster, cinema and radio campaigns were undertaken (see extra posters).
Companies that can embrace social media will see the value of this by increased engagement with employees and customers.
The best company blogs I have seen are those where stakeholders have agreed guidelines, documented and published them and then trained people on them and general bogging skills and then moved out the way!
The three key words - authenticity, transparency and responsibility.
Authentic – real people talking about real issues and subjects. Not corporate HQ or PR agency speak.
Transparency – everyone understands the guidelines for posting and commenting – internal and external.
Responsibility – you live by what you blog and comment on and are covered/not covered by company or legal liability. Anyone who reads understands caveats.