AmberCadabra Preparing a blog post: many folks on Twitter have discussed the "risks" of social media for corporations. What risks do you see?

50 responses to this plurk.

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  September 02, 2008 at 14:48 sonnygill Consumers feeling hounded by companies. 'Why are you following me?!'
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  September 02, 2008 at 14:49 onepinktee entering without the right mindset
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  September 02, 2008 at 14:53 AmberCadabra those are good ones guys. Do you think these are true "risks" that are different, say, than a misguided marketing campaign or a prod. issue?
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  September 02, 2008 at 14:57 AZJazzyJ says potential resource drain is a big risk. Consumers will expect certain level of involvement which could require large time commitment by co.
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  September 02, 2008 at 14:58 sonnygill a misguided campaign could be at fault and how they venture out into the diff SM mediums but there's also the risk of possible backlash of..
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  September 02, 2008 at 14:58 sonnygill consumers just not wanting to see certain companies in different SM avenues.
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  September 02, 2008 at 14:59 sonnygill So, not a total risk...but I guess more of a challenge for companies who don't have a strong brand name to rely on.
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  September 02, 2008 at 14:57 AmberCadabra Jeff, that was a big one on my list - dedicating and *maintaining* the needed resources. I think lots of cos underestimate that part
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:01 ItyBites says continuing to push information instead of listening to feedback
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:04 BarbaraKB wonders if biggest risk is doing *nothing*? Just like "do I need a website" of old, is SM presence same? Thus, seen as backward if do nothing?
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:04 BarbaraKB says thus, a slow & consistent burn process for businesses. Cautious but do *something* and something depends on business.
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:07 AZJazzyJ says understaffing SM could/will cause more damage than not having a presence at all.
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:09 AZJazzyJ says lack of control of the message will be a risk especially if company must conform to regulations. What if an employee misspeaks?
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:07 Kellye_Crane I think companies worry, with some legitimacy, "what if my employees say a bonehead thing?"
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:10 Kellye_Crane AZJazzyJ - love that we're thinking same thing at precisely the same moment!
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:08 sonnygill great point azjazzyj!
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:11 Jane Chin difficulty in training and standardization by corp to provide quality and at the same time minimize legal liability at the employee-consumer
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:11 Jane Chin interaction level.
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:09 Jane Chin this is one of the reasons why I think healthcare related services need to be extremely careful if they want to get into social media, and
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:10 Jane Chin that biopharma co's should probably NOT get into it.
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:12 Kellye_Crane Amber, to my point about going off message, over the weekend LivePath had a whole blog post about WholeFoods saying "f'ing" in a tweet
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:13 sonnygill Risk of disconnect between understanding & communication internally, between 'employee who gets it' vs 'upper mgmt thinking they know'
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:11 Kellye_Crane The post was here: tinyurl.com/6ydgvr. I think this is precisely why companies worry: negative attention that offsets any positive
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:12 sonnygill and ending up in a tug of war and possibility having to do it their way (wrong way) vs. the proper way
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:12 Tim Jackson All of the above are great, but the biggest risk to me is the still shaky platform of Twitter. It's still too unreliable- IMHO.
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:19 AZJazzyJ thinks it depends on why they are using SM as to whether platform instability matters. If I use it to broadcast message, having it down may be ok
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:18 AZJazzyJ says management may think of SM being used 1way and users may think of it in another causing wrong resources to be manning the SM channel.
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:42 AmberCadabra WOW I go take a phone call and look at you guys!
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:43 DebInDenver says I am with AZJazzyJ, we saw that with our DNC experiment on sending out traffic updates- users wanted a higher frequency than the org could
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:41 DebInDenver says provide. We learned from it though!
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:42 AmberCadabra so how do you guys feel about taking these risks? Like Barbara said, is the bigger risk not doing anything at all?
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:43 AmberCadabra And how do you think companies can/should mitigate these risks? Is it about careful communication and planning like anything else?
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:45 AmberCadabra I personally get frustrated at all the discussion about "what if our employees say something stupid" when whether or not the co is using SM,
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:46 AmberCadabra it's going to get said anyway - officially or unofficially! So how about some education and trainign about these tools instead of just
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  September 02, 2008 at 15:46 AmberCadabra tossing them out as "risky"?
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:00 AZJazzyJ says depends on the industry Amber. If a bank employee says something, it could be grounds for litigation if msg is against regulation.
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:00 AZJazzyJ says that is a very big risk and therefore the financial industry may choose not to accept it even though no message could be even worse.
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:01 AZJazzyJ says there are privacy issues as well if user provides private info they assume it is going to right place but may not be.
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:20 AmberCadabra Jeff, all good points.
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:32 AZJazzyJ is sorry for all the comments, I am working on a white paper about this subject and so it is kind of at the forefront of my mind.
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:35 AmberCadabra woohoo! Will look forward to that! And the comments are more than welcome - that's the whole idea!
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:43 Kellye_Crane Great points from AZJazzyJ! Also, what if the "stupid" thing the employee says is even not related to the co.
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:47 Kellye_Crane In addition to my cursing example, what if they get terse w/someone, which causes a backlash. I think the scope of worry goes beyond msging.
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:48 Kellye_Crane This is not my perception, just the kind of thing I hear from companies looking at SM.
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:50 AmberCadabra Kellye, do you think the "open" nature of SM makes it easier for these kinds of missteps to happen than, say, on a phone call or via email?
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:50 AmberCadabra How do cos view SM channels as different than all the other ways people might miscommunicate?
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:53 Kellye_Crane I think it's viewed as more public, and therefore more apt to be seen by a large number of people.
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  September 02, 2008 at 16:54 Kellye_Crane Of course, emails are making there way onto blogs (as PR people know all too well!), so the perception and reality are not nec in sync
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  September 02, 2008 at 17:02 MackCollier says putting people in charge of SM efforts that really aren't that well-versed in using these tools
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  September 02, 2008 at 17:02 MackCollier says 'How did we pick our blogger? Well since only one of us had every HEARD of blogging....'