The use and misuse of social media by companies - get a policy

Companies have adapted social media, they are spending ever more on it, but do they do not know what they are doing

Social media enables a new, more open way of communicating which is in these days in use by companies of all sizes. From the biggest, with 79 % of Fortune Global 100 companies using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or corporate blogging (Burson-Marsteller, 2010), to the smallest, with 24 % small business owners actively uses social media for a part of their business(Rockbridge Associates, 2010).

Companies do more and spend more on social media. It’s being used as a tool to perform several of the activities that are performance-critical to a company. Social media marketing, one example such an activity, is currently an about 6 % of the marketing budget, but this will increase to 10 % within a year and 20 % within five years (Duke University, 2010). When asked about recruiting, 46 % admit that they will spend more on social media over the coming year(Jobvite Inc., 2010). These are merely two examples and all tough marketing is the field where social media is most widely used and explored, there is an increase in adaption of social media for other activities in companies as well.

Social media is new, it’s changing fast and nobody has the full picture of where it’s going. It can be frightening, but the main reason for companies to be reluctance to adapt social media is that it can backfire and hurt your company. Six out of 10 organizations suffered large losses averaging $2 million each because of security incidents as a cause of social media usage during the past year(McAfee, 2010).

All though spending on social media and the possible is increasing, and in spite of the possible downsides, few actually have explicit goals and a plan on how to succeed with social media. The main driver according to two thirds of companies is new revenue potential (McAfee, 2010). Of marketers, PR and communication professionals, 40% sais their company have “experimented with social media but have not done much”, while just over a third say they have done an “average amount”. A frightening 45% says they don’t have any internal company policies or guidelines for the use of social media(Econsultancy, 2010).

There are hundreds of different algorithms for implementing and using social media in the blogs of the world. As all companies have different cultures, I believe that they are best served by making their own inernal policies for how the employees will use social media. It's like with company values, it's not that important what they are, as long as they are there. In other words; get together a policy for your company's activities in social media!