Written by Jonas Klit Nielsen
When working with social media it’s not hard to find a topic to talk about with people you just meet or with old friends for that matter.
One of the trending topics seems to be the discussion of companies closing down the possibility of using social media at work often because companies are afraid that their employees spend too much time on Facebook than on work….
I recently talked to a girl who is working for a new media sales (mobile) company, and she told me that the company had closed down all access to Facebook, because the data traffic to the site was out of proportion.
One has to wonder if the media sales company hasn’t seen the possibilities in connecting with their clients through social media, being updated on their clients or possible new client’s personal life. As someone who has been working with media sales most of my life, I know that being updated on client’s lives, knowing them as privately as possible – congratulating on birthdays and things like that – MATTERS a great deal – we use CRM systems for that. One of the greatest success for the online CRM system Salesforce.com has been face connect – bringing information from Facebook into your CRM system. Well, maybe the above mentioned company will close down the employees’ use of mobile phones next – they do use them for private conversations and text messages.
Another guy I talked to work at a TV station. He and his colleagues are blocked from using social media while at work – it’s the firewall that won’t allow it ;)
If the employees are proud of working at the TV station they would probably use their private profiles on social media to post info about which programs are on tonight and which they are looking forward to seeing etc. This is not only missing out on marketing but also missing out on the best form of marketing; word of mouth, person recommended marketing – and in my mind it’s just plain stupid.
I do not believe that anything good will come from blocking your employees’ access to social media – on the contrary. The companies that are doing this will over the next couple of years be viewed as dinosaurs by the upcoming workforce who will simply refuse to work for old traditional t companies like that.
Stopblocking.org is dedicated to providing resources for those who choose to resist the irrational blocking of employees from wide swaths of online content. It is a collaborative effort to document the benefits of providing access and answers to the concerns raised by fear mongers (not to mention the legitimate issues that companies can address with taking the draconian step of access restriction).
On the site you can read other stories of companies around the world blocking or wising up.
In all fairness there are also surveys that show that workers using social media are a costly matter for the companies. Yesterday a report in an article on BBC.co.uk claimed that £ 1,4 billion is lost every year. But people are probably spening much more time on other things at work like talking to their co-workers about private stuff, waiting for the coffee machine to be up and running or waiting for that guy from the technical department to fix your computer.
Is your company blocking your access to social media or have you heard about some that have? Do you think its okay to block access? Would love to hear your comment on the matter.
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