Comments on: The Real Reason Companies are Terrified of Social Media

By: Ryan Carlson

Ryan Carlson — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 02:25:19 +0000

As a corporate employee working for a company with an excellent brand, I agree with you. I would add that part of what drives the fear is the potential damge to the company’s brand and that one’s personal presence online could be misconstrued as the views and opinions of the company.

By: Mayank Dhingra

Mayank Dhingra — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:28:32 +0000

Fear that most companies and individuals have is because of their insecurities, insecurity that their popular/talented employees might leave them for some other company/competitor, insecurity that their might join their own company and become a competitor to name a few.

These insecurities come inherently from their lack of confidence about doing the right thing, giving the right culture etc and the fact is those who fear such things aren’t doing things right but instead of fixing that they focus on other things..

By: Twitter Today: April 23, 2009 | kenneth lim . net

Twitter Today: April 23, 2009 | kenneth lim . net — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:46:17 +0000

[...] The real reason why companies are terrified of social media (Via: @danschawbel) [...]

By: Pierce Hibma

Pierce Hibma — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:28:58 +0000

Great article. Fear is the perfect word to use for “employers” attempts to keep others inside of a box. Online networking is so wonderful because it allows people to create their own boxes or exist entirely independent of a box if they so choose.

By: Donna

Donna — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:54:00 +0000

Was recently laid off from an engineering firm that I had joined last June as biz dev director. Since energy efficiency is one of the things the firm considers one of its hallmarks, made perfect sense to capitalize on green, etc. (I’ve been in the industry a long time and have been involved in creating energy efficiency services/programs for 15+ years, so I know of what i speak). We could have been the first firm in Austin (high tech haven here!) to have utilized facebook, twitter, etc. to promote our track record in energy efficient building systems design.

But no, their idea of marketing is putting an ad in the local trade industry directory. Excuse me, why are you telling your competitors what you do? They already know! You should be telling potential customers what you do! Plus, that Twitter stuff is a waste of time!

Thanks for the severance package. Glad I already had consulting work lined up!

By: Laurie Foley

Laurie Foley — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:45:35 +0000

Greatest boss I ever had would start every hiring meeting with “Our one mission is hire people who are smarter, better and more talented than we are.” I never felt insulted. I felt like I was part of something that was getting better and better and it motivated me to constantly improve so that we could attract those great people.

He understood “no fear” WAY back when and always encouraged people to be entrepreneurial within the organization. Quite a visionary with a VERY happy team. Would love to see what he thinks of this discussion now.

By: Joe Jacobi

Joe Jacobi — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:59:02 +0000

As always, excellent post, Jonathan. Before we had these newer forms of social networking, what did we have before? We had traditional forms on person-to-person networking where companies had to deal with the same issues. The funny thing is think back to some Chamber networking after-hours event from a few years back. Who were the most fun/interesting/entertaining/authentic people to hang with? Strong personal brands!

Frankly, the kind of fear you write about in the post captures the kind of fear you don’t want to see in good renegading. This kind of fear creates obstacles. Obstacles are what you see when you’re not looking at the goal.

By: Paula Smith

Paula Smith — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:48:06 +0000

Like everyone else I agree wholeheartedly with the comments but would also suggest that the corporate world’s antipathy and/or disapproval of social netowrking isn’t a new phenomenon.

There will always be companies who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. For many of these companies networking, and knowledge sharing are not “value adding” ways to spend an employee’s time. They cannot easily assign a $ value to it, even though the customer experience may well be improved because you have a relationship with another of their stakeholders/suppliers.

And isnt the customer the most important person in all this?

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:05:16 +0000

I created a “brand” for myself to some extent within higher education. I left to go into business for myself. I considered the networking and outreach I was doing to also be building a reputation for my institution, but of course, using social media was not part of how higher ed generally builds rep. And so I got no respect for what I was doing, even after people in other areas tapped my expertise to help them with social media. I began to be pulled in too many directions and not given credit for the work I was doing. I figured if I was going to be doing all this social media work anyway, I should do it for myself. And so that’s where I am. I agree with what Olivier says above, if companies are worried about their message, they should approach a social media savvy employee and work with them. I don’t think the message can be scripted and this can’t be too heavy handed (something my institution started to do, i.e. “you can only say this and not this”), but you can ask that the company’s logo be posted alongside industry-relevant material or that sig files contain information about the company, something simple like that. It’s a risk on both sides, but could be well worth it.

By: olivier blanchard

olivier blanchard — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:05:58 +0000

Great post! And timely too.

Instead of fearing or fighting this phenomenon, companies could take a proactive approach and partner with their employees in helping them do a better job of it. At least this way, companies can help ensure that their employees are better equipped to manage their online presence in a professional and (hopefully) positive way.

Or I guess they can keep sticking their heads in the sand and hope this will all go away.