Social Media Risk Strategy – Planners Plan a Tweet

Corporate training planners must understand that despite repeated emails that attendees may not use cell phones during the presentatio or publish training materials on the Internet, more than a few people in that room will turn to social media to alleviate boredom, or to express excitement. The only way to avoid the social media risk in real time is to ban cell phones and laptops. But realistically, corporate employees are tethered to their blackberrys and iPhones. They would scoff at the idea that cell phones are banned – and they would inundate you with emails requesting an exception.

The only other way to manage social media risk through attendee usage during a corporate training is to plan for how it can best utilized, especially in the case of the instantaneous Twitter.

(1) Twitter Feed:  manage social media risk by asking attendees to submit their Twitter names in advance of the training and use a screen to pull the Tweets of all attendees as a way to make them an active part of the meeting. Let them know that they are encouraged to Tweet thoughts about the event, but to please refrain from divulging corporate information on trade secrets.
(2) Tweet-ternative: as an alternative to allowing Twitter usage, opt for an in- house service such as Present.ly to engage attendees at the conference.

(3) Search it out:  let your attendees know that you will be running searches on Twitter for conference/training related terms and all results will be projected on a communal screen.  This will manage social media risk and help ensure that attendees are not divulging private information and if someone does divulge this information they will be easier to identify.

The planning of Twitter and other instant status-update platforms is the first step for corporate event planners to take in their social media strategy and risk mitigation.  But it’s a good base to jump from.

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by, Benish A. Shah, VP of Strategic Digital Strategy – Corporate Social Media Risk & Branding

Global Executive Board

(1) Find out the most commonly used social media outlets by your employees, managers, partners, etc.

(2) Establish a set of grounded HR policies regarding social media use that are in effect during and after an individual’s employment.  Include guidelines on corporate use of social media– acting on BEHALF of the company – and individual use through company computers.

(3) Communicate with your employees on the company’s social media policy.  This is the age of cyber-fast communication, so as a business owner/management, this is critical. Tell your employees why social media policies are IMPORTANT to the well being of the company.  It should never be about scaring them, but about showing them the benefits of the policies regarding social media use.

(4) Mandatory training that is short and simple.  Have your employees certify, in writing, that they understand the social media policies as relating to your company.

(5) Track and audit the use of social media through the company infrastructure.  This will allow to develop sound policies for the future, as well as correct possible gaps in your current HR policies.

The true recipe for success, among many ingredients, necessarily includes execution. Too many of us, and I am one of the guilty, sit and think about success.  We think about how it would feel, how it must taste, how all those gorgeous people on television, reality television stars excluded, must be basking in their glory, living a life we could only dream about – those television anchors, policy pundits, acclaimed novelists, enterprising technologists, famed boutiques, and exhibitionist painters.

Let’s go back to the 1930s, during a little era called The Great Depression.  There was a young woman, born in a working class family in Queens, New York.  Her parents owned a hardware store, where she worked as a teenager. One day she decided to help her uncle, a chemist.  They began making untested skincare products.  This young woman, believing in her nascent products, went to the streets of New York City and started selling to other women – yes, she stood daily for hours, soliciting potential clients to try her products, and this during a time when the concept of true skincare did not exist.

After much struggle, she eventually persuaded several retailers to host her products on their shelves.  Her products took off beyond what a simple middle-class girl could even comprehend.  Today, she is a legend in her own right, her brand one of the most respected in the world.  Her name was Estee Lauder.

Did she have help? Yes, her uncle happened to be a chemist – she had access to chemicals and the know-how needed to create the product.  But she had to go out and execute her plan. She had to get out there and talk to people about an entirely new concept at the risk of rejection.  She did this for years, investing hours each day.

An idea, however brilliant, has no value unless you materialize the beginnings of a plan to execute it.  Do not think about the plan anymore than you need to think about your next vacation to Europe.  You won’t know every detail, every alley, every opportunity you may have when you begin your journey, but you will know enough to start the process and learn along the way.  There is no perfect plan, no perfect execution.  Indeed, there is even no guarantee of success.  But new opportunities arise from even the most elementary plans.  Live with that ambiguity and uncertainty, and watch your idea grow beyond the horizon.

– Sheheryar Sardar

(1) Social Media Complaint – It is Never Really Anonymous

Emory University dealt with this issue in 2008, and in April Formspring.com became a popular social media space for online gossip.  More often than not, posting an anonymous comment in an online burn book is not actually anonymous.  There are several ways to ascertain who posted the comment:  (1) if it was done through a work-owned server, it can be tracked; (2) if it was done through your phone, it can be easily tracked and it lessens the possible deniability option; and (3) if the social media or forum site wants to cooperate with a “the man,” they can easily turn over your identity.  In essence, it is never really anonymous.

(2) Workplace Issues from Social Media Gossip – Getting Fired

If someone finds out you posted gossip (true or untrue) about them on a social media website, they can complain and potentially lead to getting YOU fired.   A social media lawyer would tell you: workplace gossip should stay within the workplace (we realize it is impossible to eradicate it completely). Posting gossip about your co-worker can create a “hostile” work environment, and people have won lawsuits on less.  So if you would not make a poster of your comment and hang it in a conference room at work, then you probably should not be posting it online.

(3) Social Media Gossip – Getting Someone Else Fired

If someone is fired from their job based on gossip you posted on a social media or forum website, they may have a claim against you.  For example, if you incorrectly publish on asocial networking site or any other online space that your co-worker is sleeping with his boss, causing said co-worker to lose his job – he may have a claim against you.  And those few hours of laughs you had at his expense with your friends while posting gossip online – those few hours are now the bane of your existence when his lawyer contacts you with a lawsuit.

Take a lesson from Mean Girls (the movie), gossip is never a good idea:  especially once you put it in writing.

And if you ask a social media lawyer, they may say:  it could get you fired.

As an Employee: Employees in hospitals and other healthcare related fields need to remember that there are very rigid laws about patient privacy. If you are in a small town and Tweet the following: “Today’s 1:00 appointment was cranky because that’s what STDs do” – you could be giving away very private information about a patient, and you could be inadvertently giving away that patient’s identity.  So, keep those comments off the internet. If you should not be talking about it, you should not be Tweeting or Facebooking about it.

Individual brand equity is nothing new.  There are CEOs like Jobs of Apple, Dan Hesse of Sprint, or Nigel Travis of Papa John’s who have positioned themselves as brand ambassadors of their companies, transcending the traditional corporate image as a faceless entity.  Personality-driven brands are behind the successes of fashion houses like Armani and Gaultier.  Movado touts Derek Jeter wearing its sleek watches, while Coca-Cola has current rage Sarah Jessica Parker drinking its carbonate.  While the level of involvement by each individual varies with each company’s objectives, all this culminates into what can be succinctly summarized as individual brand equity, a surprisingly seminal notion despite its intuitive feel. After all, as emotional beings, we connect to other people who happen to articulate hope in a deeply personal and profound manner, whether that sense of hope is wrapped around Edward and Bella as the epitome of young love, or President Obama convincing an entire nation when ascending to the Office of Presidency that we are stronger than the Great Recession.  There is an idea, and then there’s a personality who sells that idea to the masses.

Building and credentialing that personality gives rise to a successful brand.  Competence matters, but only once the audience is convinced of the personality driving the brand.  No idea will sustain without competence or execution, but every idea must necessarily have brand equity behind it.  Traditional industries should embrace this nebulous concept – law firms, private equity boutiques, and financial institutions need to hone in on their brand equity as a personality-driven phenomenon.  This will also provide flexibility when dealing with worst-case public relations scenarios.  BP could have done so much better if the company had driven its public relations efforts through a formidable, magnetic personality, who understood that the now infamous remark, “I want my life back,” by ousted CEO Tony Hayward simply wasn’t going to cut it.

Individual brand equity is an underrated but highly potent tool in the arsenal of any organization’s growth strategy.  If conceived and nurtured correctly, it can not only increase a company’s profit margin but humanize a company’s ability to connect to its current customers and expand its customer base.  Masking the organization as one devoid of any personal characteristics will only alienate stakeholders and the public – think populist rage against banks.  Now more than ever, individual brand equity is a necessity, a salient feature of any organization that wants to sustain its business.  As Oscar Wilde said, “society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals,” a fitting and relevant pronouncement for today’s insatiable, gratifying consumer market.

(reprinted with permission from Sheheryar Sardar)

(1) Doing it Alone.

Social media is not about developing the hottest technology through your IT department; it’s about using what you know is out there in a strategic manner.  Keeping the process in-house can be detrimental on the strategic end.  Bring in social media strategists to help you see your options, the bigger picture, the risk possibilities – and pull it together through a sound social media strategy.

(2) Seeing it as an “Option”

Social media is no longer an option.  It is a necessity for all businesses, whether consumer driven or B2B. Executives need to understand the social media process, and give the okay to develop creative and effective social media strategies.

(3) Failing to Understand that Social Media is About STRATEGY.

Blindly kicking and grabbing through social media is not effective.  It is critical to sit down and develop goals, needs, and the strategy behind achieving those goals and fulfilling the needs.  Social media is a corporate strategy.

The site design is that of a gossip-blog for the corporate world.  There is information on layoffs, pay rises/cuts, and noteworthy changes within some of the biggest organizations in the country.

The these firms are not U.S. based, they do bring up an interesting point:  does brand management and reputation take precedence over free use of media?  Can (and should) companies control information that employees can read?

There are of course certain websites and offensive materials that are not appropriate for the work environment, and industry standards have dubbed them so.  But should “gossip” sites be banned because they mention a corporation or a law firm – that is the question here.

With the rise of social and digital media, the issue seems to be one of influence rather than control.  Isn’t that what social media is about?

Unlike e-mail, the power of social media rests in it being public information being shared through communities.  While an e-mail could be forwarded and then tracked to you – a Tweet can already be seen by everyone, and furthermore, it can also be retweeted, and retweeted again… and so an so forth.  And with the ability to connect Twitter and Facebook, as well as various other social applications, that information is posted on various platforms all at the same time.  Making it impossible to “unsend” or delete a single comment.  The digital footprint, if you will, is much larger and by far much more permanent in the sphere of social media law.

With this publicly available rant or blunder, more and more litigants are beginning to see social media reports come up in their cases.  Facebook and MySpace postings are being used to impeach witnesses or simply contradict their testimony in litigation.  It happened in People v. Franco, 2009 WL 3165840 (Cal. App. Ct. Oct. 5, 2009), where a jury convicted the defendant Franco of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence.  The day before the accident Franco posted the following on her MySpace page, “If you find me on the freeway and you can keep up I have a really bad habit of racing random people.”  A simple, potentially harmless amusing statement when it was posted on a public forum, but it created room for liability on the part of Franco.

So what do you do to deal with these possible issues?  Check Social Media Risk & Compliance companies such as Global Executive Board, which provide strategic consulting on these issues.  It’s better to get it done now, then to figure it out after a liabilities blood-shed.