As Melinda Catapano points out in the article “if this is connected to official agency work, you better be able to produce that record.” But aren’t these consumer sites, just used for personal use? The answer is it depends. While the lines are blurring between personal and professional use on these sites one thing is clear. If you are using them to communicate agency work you can be assured that it is going to be governed by the same set of principles that govern other communications

In fact, Wisconsin Attorney General J. B. Van Hollen recently issued an opinion in which he states that electronic communications made by elected officials are public records, even when they are posted on social networking sites. Van Hollen states that the Wisconsin Public Records laws applies whenever the content is connected to the official’s purpose or function.

One option many agencies have employed is to simply block access to these sites. That course of action flies in the face of The President’s Open Government Directive.  These sites are the perfect platform to create transparency, participation and collaboration. The Bright Side of Government recently did a blog post that discusses this exact topic. Of course with increased levels of participation comes the need to comply with the federal guidelines such as the Freedom of Information Act and the Public Information Act.

Catapano admits that “she, like numerous other CIOs, didn’t have a clue as to how to archive external social networking posts”. She goes further by saying “it would probably be a good master’s thesis because everybody needs those answers and everybody seems to be avoiding the problem.”

Well there is good news Melinda. One you are not alone in that other industries are struggling with this same challenge. Here is a quick snapshot of the issues that financial services organizations face around embracing social networks.  Second, there actually is an automated solution to archiving social network activity and content. Socialware’s Risk Manager solution was built from the ground up to solve this problem and many others that can arise from business related usage of social networks.

Today we are currently working with a number of government agencies and look forward to sharing their success stories over the coming weeks and months. In the mean time if you are interested in signing up you can request a free invitation here.

Cisco

Here are a few of the study highlights.

The first set of findings point to the increased use and integration of consumer-based social networking tools in the enterprise.

“75 percent identified social networks as the consumer-based social media tools they primarily use, while roughly 50 percent of the group also identified extensive use of microblogging.”

This part is old news. Organizations are racing to adopt social networking and microblogging tools to help drive the business and it seems there is a new article about it every day.

“Social networking tools are spreading into core areas of the value chain, including the marketing and communications, human relations, and customer service departments.”

Organizations are now moving beyond social networking silos. They’ve already proven there is value in tapping these tools as stand alone solutions and now they are looking for ways to integrate social into their enterprise processes and systems.  This is the next big wave.

While usage and integration is skyrocketing, companies have been lax in regards to governance and involving IT in their decisions.  Ultimately, this creates a great deal of risk and exposure.

“Only 1 in 7 companies noted a formal process associated with adopting consumer-based social networking tools for business purposes, indicating that the potential risks associated with these tools in the enterprise are either overlooked or not well understood.”

This is likely a result of the unbridled growth of these tools and all the buzz associated with them.  But like any good business decision, companies need to step back, understand what they are trying to achieve, evaluate the risks and put the tools in place to manage the program. I will say that the companies we’ve been working with in regulated industries are taking a very programmatic approach to adopting social.  While other industries may not face the same challenges they can learn a lot from these institutions.

“Only 1 in 5 participants identified any policies in place concerning the use of consumer-based social networking technologies in the enterprise.”

This point has come up before.  If you fall in this camp be sure to check out this list of sample social media policies.  As of today there are over 115 examples.  In addition, here is a great list of government related social media policies.

Be careful in thinking that a policy alone is all you need.  Deloitte found in an Ethics & Workplace Survey that 49% of employees say a company policy won’t change how they behave online. As a result you should evaluate tools to help you monitor activity to protect your employees and your brand.

“Due to the unstructured nature of social networking, companies continue to struggle with policy creation and adoption, as copying an established governance process from other, more structured areas (for example, information technology) often doesn’t work for social networking.”

Until recently companies have had two choices when it comes to social networking sites. Open the floodgates or completely block access. Since these are consumers sites there are no built in management controls for the enterprise. This is one reason why social middleware has become such a hot topic.  With it companies can apply structure, define policies, control access and protect their brand on these open, consumer sites.

“Businesses also find difficulty in striking the right balance between the social and personal nature of these tools while maintaining some degree of corporate oversight.”

We hear this a lot from our clients as well.  On Twitter users can easily create multiple personas.  However, on Facebook and LinkedIn you are only allowed a single account under their terms of use.  As a result there is no way to separate your personal activity from the professional on these sites.

Again the need for social middleware becomes clear.  Adopting this middle layer creates the ability for employees to choose whether or not content is personal vs. professional.  As a result companies can implement policies that give employees the ability to choose what category the content falls under and as a result how that content will be monitored, retained and managed by the enterprise.

“Only 1 in 10 respondents noted direct IT involvement in externally facing social networking initiatives. Although the IT department is typically not involved as a primary decision maker, respondents did recognize the need for these tools to scale and properly integrate with existing business processes to reap maximum benefits.”

There are two items of note here. First for companies to realize the full benefits of these tools they will need direct integration to their people, processes and systems. Building loose connections in a one-off manner to each of these sites it not the answer.  IT will want a single point of integration to marry enterprise processes with the top sites of today and those that will be the next Facebook tomorrow.

The second reason it is critical to involve IT is that these sites have a very real impact on the infrastructure of the enterprise. A report from Blue Coat noted “a company based in the US was having problems connecting with its South Africa office” due to the fact that “the bandwidth on its WAN link was completely consumed and it found that 75% of that traffic was Facebook.”

Of course blocking access is not the answer. In that same report they highlighted a customer that “blocked Facebook and within 48 hours they had to unblock it.  Marketing and HR had complained that it was critical to them getting the job done.”

There has to be a happy medium.  Companies will be forced to open up access to these tools but at the same time they need to manage that access.  One solution to the bandwidth problem is to govern access to those parts of the site that consume the most, like videos and photos.  This way you meet the needs of the business by giving access while not crippling the rest of the network.

In addition to the analysis in the report there are some great perspectives by industry leaders on why adopting these social tools will ultimately be a driver of success and competitive advantage.

“Companies who will succeed in embracing the tremendous power of social networking will be those who design a collaborative IT architecture capable of supporting the use of these technologies and mitigating the risks they pose.”
Nick Earle, senior vice president, Cisco Services

“Businesses need to embrace social media not only to remain competitive, but also to continue to attract top talent. The next generation of leaders will be exceptionally savvy with these tools, so 3M is using social media externally to help us with recruiting. Several of the graduates we hired this year specifically told us that they hadn’t considered 3M before they saw our employer profile on social media.”
Hugh Murphy, e-Channels, 3M U.K. and Ireland

Thanks Cisco for a great report on a hot topic. I’m looking forward to part 2.

There are a lot of stories out there about companies successfully using new technologies to deliver great customer service.  I wanted to take a different approach and tell you about a disappointing experience with Fisher-Price, a $6 billion dollar corporation (Mattel is the parent). My hope is that companies will learn as much from my experience as they will from the high profile successes like Comcast and Dell.

This all started with the purchase of a new video monitor.  Because of all the electronics in my home – wireless routers, cordless phones, AppleTV, etc. there was constant interference with my old video monitor.  There was no way I was going to live through 3 more years of static (our second child was on the way at the time).  I’m sure many parents have experienced this same problem.

So after a little research I was excited to find the Fisher-Price Mom Response Video Baby Monitor.  It had just come out so unfortunately there were no consumer reviews.  I decided it was worth the risk so I went ahead and bought it.  Thanks to Amazon Prime (which is awesome) we got the product in two days.  Sure enough, the product was great.  It delivered good video without any interference.  Finally, I’d be able to get some sleep without listening to all that static.

Then the problems started.  We unplugged the monitor and took it into the living room.  Literally after 30 minutes the battery was dead.  Fast forward a few months and the unit would only hold a charge for 10 minutes.  I started doing some research and discovered that we weren’t the only ones with this problem.  Every one of the sites below have customer reviews calling out the battery life issue:

- Amazon
- Toys-R-Us
- Fisher-Price

Naturally, I headed over to the Fisher-Price site to e-mail customer service.  That’s when the problems started.  There was no e-mail listed anywhere! Are you serious? In this day and age I can’t send a customer service email to a $6 billion dollar corporation? I don’t know about you, but my life is busy enough with work and two kids that I have no intentions of dialing a 1-800 number and sitting on hold for 10 minutes.

I was frustrated but didn’t give up.  I did a search to see if they had a Twitter account.  That would satisfy my needs.  Not surprisingly, they didn’t.  How about a Facebook page? Maybe I could post something there to see if other Fisher-Price customers had found a solution.  What was I thinking? Of course they didn’t have a page.  Now I was really getting frustrated.

So next I took matters into my own hands.  I went out and bought a replacement battery for the unit.  Even though this cost me another $15 bucks (not to mention the time and energy researching the battery and buying it) it was worth it to have a monitor that would actually hold a charge.

Needless to say Fisher-Price has one frustrated customer.  And believe me, I have a ton of Fisher-Price products in my house.  With two kids under 3, there are more plastic products in my house than I have friends on Facebook! But how will this impact my loyalty to the brand? How would it impact you? If you believe the research it will be huge.

Harris Interactive found that 80% of adults polled vowed never to buy from a company after a negative experience.  This was up from 68% the year before.  A survey by Accenture found that 52% of those polled said that their expectations for service had increased over the past five years. This research is all pointing to the same thing.  Customer service is becoming the main reason people switch brands.

Consumers are busy.  Life is moving by faster and faster.  There is a reason why people are embracing real-time streams of information from Twitter to Facebook.  People don’t have time to wait any more.  As a result companies need to communicate with customers on their terms.  At the very least, offer an e-mail address!

I’ve heard all the arguments about adopting these technologies.  The biggest one is that customer service is viewed as a cost center.  This couldn’t be further from the truth. In the book, The Next Evolution of Marketing, they point out that customer service is marketing.  Look at the research above.  If someone has a poor experience (and it isn’t remedied) they aren’t going to be a customer for very long. Worse, they are going to tell their friends about it – or in this case: post a blog.

Customer service also becomes your new research department.  Everyone that reaches out via phone, email, on Twitter or on Facebook provides an immediate and invaluable source of feedback.  While the feedback can sometimes be negative, the information is invaluable and should be embraced.

Of course, sometimes customers post to their own Twitter feed or blog about a brand or product experience (either positive or negative).  Smart companies are deploying listening tools to monitor this flow of information and the good ones are acting on it.  I personally have a laundry list of Google Alerts set up on key terms like Socialware, Social Middleware, etc.  So the second something gets published, I find out about it. I wonder if Fisher-Price will hear about this blog post? I wonder how long it will take?

Don’t let poor customer service kill your profits and customer loyalty.  Benchmark yourself against the best and put in place a plan to start implementing the right customer service tools for your customers.  They will thank you with their words and their loyalty.

PS: Let’s run a little experiment.  Share this article to see if it makes its way to Fisher-Price. I will post a follow-up if they respond.

Technology has been evolving at lighting speed in recent years and sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have changed the way we connect forever. Everyone has experienced the benefit in their personal lives and now businesses are recognizing the opportunity as well.

In the next decade the companies that have the largest employee networks, or said another way that have the highest connection coefficient will be the ones that win. Metcalfe’s Law applies for enterprises just as it applies for technology, “the usefulness, or utility, of a network equals the square of the number of users.” In other words the more connected employees are (to other employees, partners, customers, prospects, etc) the more value the employees and therefore the enterprise will experience.

Here is an example to illustrate the point. Say you have 10,000 employees. You can influence employee connectivity in one of two ways. First you need to encourage all of your employees to participate in these social networks. This is critical because this number is not going to change significantly in the short term. Second you need to help employees grow their number of connections – this is the connection coefficient. The higher the coefficient, the greater the reach. While you won’t double the number of employees you have in a year you can double the connection coefficient and if you do the results will be tremendous.

In the networked economy knowledge grows as it is shared. Most importantly companies get stronger through their connections and those connections have to be driven by your employees. Check out my last post to see an example how these connections can be used to help drive recruiting.

Stay tuned for future posts on how these connections change the game in sales, marketing and customer service.