Crowd control

Policing employees' social media activity without bringing out the riot squad

By guest blogger Tamera Lang

In my last guest post, I mentioned that having a staff social media policy in place is one of the key ways to manage social media risk (if you haven't already, email us for a free copy of the BlueChip online reputation risk checklist, which sets out some of the essentials). Don't just take my word for it - lawyers are urging Australian businesses to get their social media policy in order to avoid legal action due to employee behaviour online. Last year, Fair Work Australia reinstated an employee who was dismissed for alleged inappropriate social media use because his employer did not have a social media policy in place and usual induction training on behaviour was "not sufficient". With more than 11 million Australian Facebook accounts, you would be hard pressed to find a mid- to large-sized company with no staff interacting online.

Gone are the days when only a few select employees are able to communicate about your company, brands or products in a controlled and disciplined manner. While it may be tempting to ask your staff not to communicate about their workplace at all, it's an unrealistic expectation. Social media discussions are like a cocktail party, people will talk regardless and it's better to put in place some guidelines to help your employees decide what is appropriate to say (and what is not).

Social media policies broadly need to deal with two types of social media use: personal and business. Personal social media use is the most common, where employees use their own channels to tweet, post  and blog about their own lives - lives that intersect with work. Business use of social media occurs when employees are authorised to use social media as part of their job function: for example, in the context of answering customer queries or promoting products.

At a bare minimum, the personal use of social media policy should:

• prohibit disclosure of confidential company information (including legally privileged information, market sensitive matters and private customer data);
• prohibit using social media to breach company policy and laws (for example, to harass, discriminate and/or defame);
• provide guidelines on when social media is acceptable (for example, is it banned during business hours or is a moderate amount of use acceptable?); and 
• provide guidelines on what is and is not appropriate to say about the employee's role and work environment.

The final point above is important. As I stated above, work is a part of life and it's natural that employees (particularly from younger generations) may feel entitled to pass comment on social media. It's better than an employee set the tone of what's acceptable, rather than imposing a downright prohibition. Empower and trust your employees to make acceptable comments. After all, an engaged and motivated employee is an excellent brand ambassador. Just make sure they know their boundaries: for example, they should not proclaim themselves official spokespeople and should not comment on legal matters or crisis situations. Try to keep your social media policy linked to your corporate values and/or identity, so that it resonates with your employees.

A great example of a company with a straight forward, yet comprehensive, social media policy in the financial services sector is NAB. Its policy simply requests that employees are to behave in three ways: to be transparent, to be responsible and to be respectful. And it all fits on to one page, so it's easy to refer to and remember.

While this is one example of a good social media policy, when devising your own, you should consider the special needs of your organisation and your employees. This is definitely a case of one size not fitting all. The best course of action is to get advice from your social media sign-off team (comprising of your key internal stakeholders) and external communication advisers to determine what will work for your organisation.

Tamera Lang is currently undertaking an internship with BlueChip Communication

War of the worlds: how to win the social media turf tussle (and why corporate affairs should take the lead)

By guest blogger Holly Clark

There is a turf war breaking out and at the centre of the struggle is social media. The land grab for shrinking marketing budgets has resulted in marketing departments all wanting a piece of the social media action. That is at least, when things are going well. Which brings us to the question of who takes charge when things are going pear-shaped?

Last week Target became the latest social media casualty after a mother with a strong opinion aired her disapproval of some of the store's clothing options for young girls on its Facebook page. Within four days, she found herself starring in a half page article in the SMH. If Corporate Affairs didn't move in to own social media at this point, I'm sure they received a knock on the door from marketing shortly after.

Ultimately this highlights an issue that has been bubbling away since the advent of Facebook, and that is, who owns social media? And no, I'm not missing the point, we all know that the consumer is the true owner of social media, but where should social media sit within a business?

It's not a straightforward issue. The recent ruling by the Advertising Standards Board means companies are responsible for all their content on their Facebook pages, even user comments, as Facebook is deemed to be a marketing tool over which a company has control and which is designed to promote a product. Add to the mix the vexed issue of censorship and we have a virtual minefield.

I'm not going to suggest that every business needs a large social media communications function to verify every comment and carefully develop 'on brand' responses screened for every possible reputational risk. But surely Corporate Affairs departments, which are skilled in producing content, communicating with external audiences and safeguarding their companies' reputations are ideally positioned to take the lead? And training and developing guidelines to ensure there's consistency and leadership from internal teams is a great place to start.

Day to day, the owner of your organisation's social media channels should, ideally, be the person who is best placed to deliver the experience that users are looking for. So it may be that Corporate Affairs manages the Twitter presence where comments might be about the company as a whole, whereas Customer Services may be responsible for Facebook, where things can get more personal. These are of course sweeping generalisations that will vary from business to business. While requirements may vary, there is always a place fora clean plan describing how social media is addressed and resourced.

We know that in years to come, this debate will become redundant - or at least muted - as social media takes its inevitable place as an ingrained part of an organisation's daily operations. But in the meantime Corporate Affairs has a large role to play in safeguarding the reputation of a business as it enters the social media landscape.

Holly Clark is BlueChip Communication's Account Director

What goes online, stays online. So how are you safeguarding your company's reputation?

By guest blogger Nicola Michel

The recent ruling by the Advertising Standards Board that advertisers are responsible for third party posts on their Facebook page has, not surprisingly, been labelled "a challenge" by the body that represents the $30 billion a year marketing industry. "Challenging" barely begins to address the ramifications of the decision, which goes to the heart of whether social media campaigns are even viable in a world where marketers are held responsible for the ill-judged comments of followers.

A number of examples ignited the fire under the ABS, but chief among them were some of the comments posted on the Facebook page of Carlton & United Breweries (CUB's) 'VB' beer brand, when followers were asked a supposedly innocuous question: "Besides VB, what's the next essential needed for a great Australia Day BBQ?"

Whether or not you consider the question innocuous (the phrase 'asking for trouble' springs to mind), the majority of the answers certainly weren't. Of those that actually made sense, they ranged from the vaguely moronic to the downright distasteful, spanning the gamut of sexist, racist and homophobic.

The North Korean Solution?

The basis of the ABS decision was that it deemed the Facebook page of an advertiser to be a marketing communication tool over which the advertiser 'has a reasonable degree of control'. As such, the Code that applies to all advertising also applies to the page in its entirety, including comments posted by third parties.

Outrage over the decision has been fast and furious, with some calling it the "North Korean version of social media" and others questioning whether, if brands are required to censor offensive or misleading comments, how long will it be before they censor negative comments about their brand (which is not to say that the latter has not already been happening...)

Most comments centred on the fact that the decision changes the very essence of social media as a two way conversation that reflects the rough and tumble of real-time, spontaneous social interaction itself.

Some of the comments on the CUB VB Facebook page were described as akin to those you might hear in a dodgy pub late on a Friday night. This may hardly make them what you yearn to hear, but does that also mean they shouldn't be posted online? If social media is an extension of the conversations we have in life, is there a place for censorship?

One essential difference between Facebook and the pub is, of course, that a hazy conversation on a Friday night is said and done, whereas what goes online, stays online. And in the case of the VB Facebook page it really did stay online, with some comments left posted for over a year. It's likely that the situation would have been very different if the comments were removed quickly.

Regulation: guaranteed to fail?

Although regulation seems to fly in the face of the nature of social media, this and numerous other examples lead some to the conclusion that some form of legislated (attempted at least) censorship or control is inevitable.

Many major social innovations have required evolving regulation. Few would argue that the laws covering driving, for example, after the advent of the car, should never have been enacted.

However, I would argue that increased and, in particular, blanket regulation usually ends in unintended consequences - which often defeat or make a mockery of the purpose of the regulation in the first place.

And even if you accept that most people would find at least some of the comments on the VB Facebook page offensive, (and that therefore some regulation is required) who decides which of the other comments are offensive and which aren't - or which move from the grey realm of offensive to discriminatory and inciting of hatred? And how on earth do you police it? Some brands get thousands of comments per week on their Facebook pages. Do they need to employ an army to monitor them?

An army of social media monitors?

The answer regarding monitoring is probably "yes". But you probably won't need an army.

So what is required to manage and moderate a company's social media activity?

The conventional wisdom has been that the essence of social media is that it comes straight from the horse's mouth, and that employing a PR company or other 'mouthpiece' to communicate for you on social media is somehow cheating and depriving the medium of its immediacy and relevance. That's absolutely fair enough. But equally, the evolution of social media has been so rapid that a company now demonstrably needs to address the issue of protection and reputation and, bottom line, staying out of court.

The good news is that there is middle ground: the space between having any social media so stage managed as to lose its meaning (think, London 2012), and stepping to the abyss and subjecting your brand and business to a damaging free-fall.

That middle ground involves a combination of using the new and evolving tools available, and having a solid, workable and well understood social media policy in place.

Facebook, for example, provides some ready-made tools. The recently updated Timeline for brands gives page administrators the ability to pre-moderate comments, to restrict access to underage Facebook users, to restrict the kinds of posts users can share and to set "page visibility", so administrators are required to approve all posts that appear. Critics say that not only does this pre-moderation substantially increase the workload for page administrators, it seriously affects the brand's ability to have the types of real-time conversations with followers that are what Facebook is all about. Nonetheless, it does exist and is an option.

Social media policy: the latest must-have accessory for corporates

When it comes to social media policy, a good start is to review the excellent McKinsey framework for companies engaged in social media. According to that framework, the very first step is to monitor. The next is to respond to consumers' comments. Few would believe, for example, that CUB really wanted to encourage racist and sexist comments or to have those comments associated with their brand. If they had been monitoring, they would have been able to respond, potentially by taking the comments down. So, while some marketing executives are screaming about the difficulties and costs associated with monitoring, surely monitoring is a necessary cost associated with using social media and needs to be weighed against the benefits it provides as well as, significantly, the risks of not engaging in the conversation at all?

The fact is, that if well done, it really isn't that hard. Not only are the tools already out there (and improving all the time), most brands using social media effectively are monitoring their social media presence already (and if they're not, they should be).

Ultimately, the whole debate over the ASB decision highlights the fact that companies need to engage with their social media presence in the way they hope consumers will engage with their brand in the offline world.

That means, just as a company has guidelines around what it says and does in real life, it needs guidelines around social media that, among other things, removes the doubt and grey areas around what's offensive or illegal (and should be removed) and what constitutes robust, vitriolic and hard-to-hear criticism of their brand - and should stay online and be responded to.

If you don't have the skills or the resources to effectively monitor your social media presence, or don't know where to start, seeking expert help to get set up and potentially monitor responses down the track can be a good move.

The latter seems to be the move that CUB has taken: it was 'managing' its Facebook page itself and has now given the responsibility to an external agency.

While it's easy to say in hindsight, it looks like CUB could have saved a lot of pain by getting some help setting up a policy that involved monitoring and response in the first instance - and in the absence of the in house resources or skills to continue to do so, engaging a social media partner to do it for them.

It really is Reputation Management 101.

Nicola Michel is a writer for BlueChip Communication

When worlds collide: word of mouth v. social media

By guest blogger Sophie Halls Anning

Did the headline of Monday's AFR, 'Word of mouth trumps social media' send marketing folk seeking out recommendations on the best word-of-mouth agency? Questioning whether Twitter might just be an ivory tower containing only a few of their most vocal target audience? Wondering whether the high production value of the clip on socionomics might have contributed to a misguided leap of blind faith? Or, did it have them doing as I did, Googling word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing and seeing what insights traditional, online and social media as well as wikis and websites could reveal about this underground speciality?

I recall WOM fighting for share of PR budget a few years ago, rather than being seen as a discipline in its own right. Social media, by contrast, could swallow up to 17.5% of total marketing spend over the next 5 years, up from the current 7.1% estimation, perhaps because, unlike WOM, it's quantifiable and its reach on numbers alone, is vastly superior.

Australian agencies emphasise that they don't pay the people on their database to spruik products to their networks. They just give them free stuff on the basis that these people possess a voice. Does their status as Citizen Smith rather than a media personality or celebrity neatly side step the classic 'cash for comment' accusations made famous years ago by Lawsy and more recently the SA Tourism Commission's Kangaroo Island campaign?

Andy Sernovitz's Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, endorsed by Seth Godin offers some great tools to get started in word of mouth.Sernovitz suggests starting with the basics: "a clever product name, a special service, a choice of uniform, a well-worded email, or being a little bit nicer to your customers". The stand out here is that nowhere does he mention giving free stuff to people on a database in exchange for chat. By all means, share a good experience over a coffee or on your Facebook status. But talking up a wine sent to you by a company that's being paid to have you talk about it? I'm not so sure. Because once consumers find out that recommendations aren't entirely as independent as they thought, the danger lies in them quickly losing respect for your brand, product or service.

As the SA Tourism Commission discovered to its peril, conversation on social media has a pace which makes the Hush Puppies epidemic referenced in Malcolm Gladwell's seminal book The Tipping Point seem slow. And, as targeting and reach continue to improve day by day, if not minute by minute, it seems clear to me that social media wins.

Sophie Halls Anning is BlueChip Communication's General Manager

Looking at social media? Then start with an internal media conference

By guest blogger Michelle Ryan

Recently my colleague, Carden Calder - BlueChip Communication founder and social media aficionado - posted a blog about social learning. It looked at the benefits of sharing knowledge and experiences in and out of social media, with a special focus on financial services firms.

Rather than give you the complete low-down on the post, you can read it for yourself here, but I did want to expand on one of the points it contained.

Top ways to kick off social learning...

In her blog, Carden listed three key suggestions to help financial service firms, that want to give social learning a try, get started. 

One of those suggestions was to hold an internal social media conference.

What is that, you ask? Allow me to explain ... in 140 characters or less. No, kidding, I will need a few more words than that, but here is a brief outline.

Get started on social learning by running your own internal social media conference...

An internal social media conference involves presenting relevant information about social media, stimulating ideas and inspiration among staff members. It's a safe, fun, social media training ground, that ideally should work as a springboard for lively discussion. It's also a great opportunity for staff to get their hands dirty and have a 'play' with various social media platforms before they launch into the 'real' virtual world on your company's behalf.

Five steps to hosting an internal social media conference

1. Decide on the topic and develop some guidelines for content
• Be very specific about topics you want covered. Choose, say, a social media channel, concept or service.
• Choose a topic that is directly relevant to your staff and your social media goals - if you're not going to use Facebook, don't go there, but if you are launching a Twitter handle at a conference, you need to get your staff across the who, what, when, why and how of this before you launch it.
• Invite staff to send questions ahead of time so speakers can tailor their presentations or run Q&A sessions if appropriate.
2. Find an external speaker and brief them
• A quick search online for social media buzz words will show you a number of people who purport to be, or in fact are, experts in social and digital communication. Ask around, check references and other bona fides to be sure you get the real deal.
• Use your conference topics as starting points in your search and look for an external speaker with direct capabilities or experience in this area.
3. Get staff involved and have them present
• Yes, engage the speaker, but don't overlook the capabilities of your own staff.
• Do you have someone already on staff who can share their knowledge and experience? If so, do what you can to encourage peer-to-peer, or social learning - for example, appoint that person as a champion or ambassador of your social media campaign. This is a great way to fast track results and keep the all-important conversation alive in the office once the internal conference has finished!
4. Review
• Ask your staff and any external speakers to rate the conference so you can improve or build on its lessons. A quick Survey Monkey questionnaire (incentivised if you are serious about getting a response) will allow you to get this information quickly and easily.
5. And rebook
• Once you have the feedback - use it! Book in another session (perhaps aim for one a quarter) to discuss a different topic and to hear from different 'experts'. With social and digital media changing constantly, you'd be unwise to believe you have heard or learnt it all before.

Michelle Ryan is an Account Manager for BlueChip Communication

Why financial services suddenly had a social media conversion

It's been a while since we first started the conversation. And last year suddenly the dialogue changed complexion.

Instead of saying:

"Really? No it's just another Gen Y fad" or

"Sure, that will work for Coke but not for our (insert financial services brand here) audiences" or

"I don't think we need twitter or facebook. Not really our audience"

...many senior executives started to ask...

"How do we get there?"

And what drove the change? Well there was carrot and stick I suspect - from above, below and outside.

Before I start sounding too much like a Dr Seuss book, let me explain.

Many times recently I have heard (forgive the paraphrasing if you recognise yourself):

1. The Board want to know what we are doing about social media
2. Our staff feel we really should be using social media / using social media more
3. We had this issue that started on twitter/facebook/on a blog/online but we couldn't deal with it properly because we're really not set up to.

And so now we have social media religion. Yes, it's a touch feverish but doubtless that will settle down after the first blush of conversion wears off and social becomes the 'new new new normal'.

We've had the "new normal", post GFC. We've had the "new new normal" of volatility and GFC Mark II threats. Now I'm calling a similar major shift - the new new new normal.

Okay it's kind of hokey jargon but long term, social media will fundamentally change how we communicate as people and organisations far more than a couple of bouts with liquidity issues, bank failures and sovereign debt issues.

Possibly it already has.

If so, most in financial services are playing catch up.