Comments on: Social Networking in Business – Good or Bad?

By: aimee whitcroft

aimee whitcroft — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:54:10 +0000

From my perspective, as long as an employee is getting their work done, they should be allowed to look at facebook/personal email etc whenever they like. As you mention, the lines between personal and leisure lives are continually blurring, and I’ve seen some recent research that shows that allowing workers to do personal things at work (like ‘wasting’ a little time on facebook) tends to make them happier, more engaged and loyal employees. ..

By: Margaret

Margaret — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:48:47 +0000

Catarina – I agree – there are invariably people who will abuse any policy or at least stetch it. But it is the same issue for companies as when emails and the web became available to all employees or for that matter time for employees who make a lot of personal calls at work.

The company must have guiding policies that outline the dos and don’ts of any communication avenue. If structured correctly, the company could benefit immensely from employee involvement and it could help strengthen the advocacy and loyalty of the employee to the company.

By: Catarina Alexon

Catarina Alexon — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:37:18 +0000

Social media should definitely be an important part of promoting companies, countries, products or you yourself for that matter. Depending on what you are promoting and what your objective is you use it accordingly.

Having said that I do believe that a certain type of employees spending time on Facebook is a complete waste of time for a company, but then again, how do you restrict that? In particular if a company uses Facebook for marketing purposes.

By: Guy

Guy — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:56:02 +0000

Thanks, Margaret. I couldn’t agree more!

Companies lose sight of the fact that everyone is a part of the broader marketing team, as you say, through interaction with stakeholders in the business.

By: Margaret

Margaret — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:18:56 +0000

Social networking makes the most sense when you consider it in the context that EVERYONE in the company is in marketing – whether they work in that department or not. Social networking now encourages employees know what the company does and how it does it so that they can communicate this quickly and easily through social media tools.

I agree policies need to be in place but YES! let’s use the power technology has to connect with customers.