Co-authored by Tate Stickles
If all you know about social networks is that your kids spend a lot of time at their computer on MySpace or Facebook then you're missing out on adding an important tool used by all kinds of professionals. And if you don't start using social networks to connect to your customers and business partners you're giving your competitors an advantage.
Social networks are online services that use software to create social communities. The kind of community varies from site to site, but most activities and hobbies now have sites designed for them.
For some time kids were really the only people using social networks, usually to connect with friends, plan parties, and even finding dates for Saturday night. Social networks took off with sites like MySpace and Facebook, and originally used almost exclusively by teenagers and college students, before moving into the mainstream.
In 2005, News Corporation bought MySpace for $580 million dollars-a figure large enough to catch everyone's attention. Now social networks are the hot topics in industries of all kinds and entire conferences and conventions are devoted to them.
In some ways, social networks are the logical extension of older technologies like Usenet, LISTSERVs, and bulletin board services (remember those?). These older technologies allowed people to communicate and exchange information online, but for many reasons the old technologies didn't fit into the new Web 2.0 world. Not surprisingly, some bright young techies have taken the old idea of online collaboration and networking and adapted it to today's web based technologies. Social networking applications were born.
Since then, the marketplace has been flooded with new social network services designed to aid today's businesses. But I'd suggest that you don't want to be an adopter of a less popular service since it may not be of any use to you if your customers and business partners are using something else. After all, a social network has no purpose if you're the only one there.
Professional social networks are springing up offering specific features to the business community. The only useful one I've found so far is LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com), and it makes business networking easier for professionals. It allows you to create an online profile for yourself and to create and maintain an online list of contact details of people you know and trust. If you're interested, you can check out LinkedIn and view the profiles of the co-authors of this article at
http://www.linkedin.com/in/mgrossman27 and
http://www.linkedin.com/in/tatestickles.
I've enjoyed the process of watching LinkedIn grow. First, I started getting invitations to connect that I ignored. Then, I begrudgingly established an account and started accepting invites. I still wasn't paying attention, still ignored most invitations, and didn't give much time or attention to my own profile on LinkedIn. Finally, I was getting so many invitations that I thought LinkedIn had finally established that critical mass needed to make a social network interesting. I worked with my free account for several months. Now, I'm paying a monthly fee for their premium services.
At this point, I think that LinkedIn has business value. Since you can start with a free account, I recommend that you try it. As for the other business networking sites, I'd ignore them. I dabbled with a couple of others, but I didn't find them helpful. Moreover, I don't think that they'll survive because I think that it is already too late for any relative newcomer to develop a critical mass. Quite simply, LinkedIn owns the business social networking space.
If you're going to use social networks for business purposes, you should be aware that the use of social networks in the workplace comes with its own set of legal problems. The good news is that using social networks is not the huge paradigm shift we saw when the use of e-mail and web browsers changed the way we do business. Using social networks is more like adding instant messaging to the office--simply another networking and collaboration tool that allows faster and better communications amongst your employees, potential customers, and business partners. Still, you should address the use of social networks in your employee handbooks, contracts, and acceptable use policies.
As with all technology in the workplace, you need to be careful to ensure that your employees don't get you or your company in trouble. While intellectual property theft or the exposures of your company's trade secrets online are the major concerns, there are other ways your employee's could get your company in trouble or cause your problems. Libel and damage to your company's reputation leap to mind. Loss of employee productivity is another. You should consult with your technology attorney to ensure that your company does not face any liability for your employee's actions when using social networks. It's a matter of education and having clearly established policies.
You need to stress to your employees that their work and personal social networks should remain separate, similar to requiring them to keep separate email accounts for work and personal use. It's all too easy for your employees to add personal contacts to their business contact list or vice-versa, and the crossing of business and personal messages could embarrass everyone. One tactic to use is to tell employees that personal information should remain on personal sites such as MySpace while business information should stay on LinkedIn. Meshing work and personal networks leads to a host of problems.
In a perfect world, your people won't be interested in using personal accounts on social network services at all. However, if they are be careful not to overreach as an employer.
The easy answer is to simply prohibit access to social networks in the workplace and on company time. Block all of the sites except LinkedIn. While this may seem a bit draconian in today's business world, and your IT guys may hate you for adding to their workload, prohibiting access while on company time or using company equipment is the safest option. But this solution is not realistic in most cases, monitoring and logging the use of social networks is the more reasonable option.
Instead, be clear to your employees that they will get in trouble for any activity on social network services that could reasonably prove detrimental to your company. Tell them you're going to be monitoring social networks generally for company related information. If you find something damaging to your company, and you discover the employee is the source of such information, they need to know they could be fired and sued for damages as appropriate.
You need to update your employee policies and employment contracts today to address the use of social networks. The policy needs to address use on company time and on company equipment. Come up with a reasonable policy and implement it through the use of technological tools and employee training. Be clear on what you are expecting from your people in their work and private lives, and what the penalties are for violating your policy.
Your goal is a simple one. You want to get everyone on the same page so your company can use social networks as a tool to give you an advantage over your competitors.