| AmberCadabra | Preparing a blog post: many folks on Twitter have discussed the "risks" of social media for corporations. What risks do you see? |
Sep 02, 2008 -
02:40PM
| AmberCadabra | Preparing a blog post: many folks on Twitter have discussed the "risks" of social media for corporations. What risks do you see? |
| sonnygill | Consumers feeling hounded by companies. 'Why are you following me?!' |
| onepinktee | entering without the right mindset |
| 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? |
| AZJazzyJ | says | potential resource drain is a big risk. Consumers will expect certain level of involvement which could require large time commitment by co. |
| 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.. |
| sonnygill | consumers just not wanting to see certain companies in different SM avenues. |
| 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. |
| AmberCadabra | Jeff, that was a big one on my list - dedicating and *maintaining* the needed resources. I think lots of cos underestimate that part |
| LaShae | says | continuing to push information instead of listening to feedback |
| 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? |
| BarbaraKB | says | thus, a slow & consistent burn process for businesses. Cautious but do *something* and something depends on business. |
| AZJazzyJ | says | understaffing SM could/will cause more damage than not having a presence at all. |
| AZJazzyJ | says | lack of control of the message will be a risk especially if company must conform to regulations. What if an employee misspeaks? |
| Kellye_Crane | I think companies worry, with some legitimacy, "what if my employees say a bonehead thing?" |
| Kellye_Crane | AZJazzyJ - love that we're thinking same thing at precisely the same moment! |
| Jane Chin | difficulty in training and standardization by corp to provide quality and at the same time minimize legal liability at the employee-consumer |
| Jane Chin | interaction level. |
| 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 |
| Jane Chin | that biopharma co's should probably NOT get into it. |
| 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 |
| sonnygill | Risk of disconnect between understanding & communication internally, between 'employee who gets it' vs 'upper mgmt thinking they know' |
| Kellye_Crane | The post was here: tinyurl.com/6ydgvr. I think this is precisely why companies worry: negative attention that offsets any positive |
| sonnygill | and ending up in a tug of war and possibility having to do it their way (wrong way) vs. the proper way |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| AmberCadabra | WOW I go take a phone call and look at you guys!  |
| DebInAustin | 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 |
| DebInAustin | says | provide. We learned from it though! |
| AmberCadabra | so how do you guys feel about taking these risks? Like Barbara said, is the bigger risk not doing anything at all? |
| AmberCadabra | And how do you think companies can/should mitigate these risks? Is it about careful communication and planning like anything else? |
| 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, |
| AmberCadabra | it's going to get said anyway - officially or unofficially! So how about some education and trainign about these tools instead of just |
| AmberCadabra | tossing them out as "risky"? |
| AZJazzyJ | says | depends on the industry Amber. If a bank employee says something, it could be grounds for litigation if msg is against regulation. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| AmberCadabra | Jeff, all good points. |
| 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. |
| AmberCadabra | woohoo! Will look forward to that! And the comments are more than welcome - that's the whole idea! |
| Kellye_Crane | Great points from AZJazzyJ! Also, what if the "stupid" thing the employee says is even not related to the co. |
| 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. |
| Kellye_Crane | This is not my perception, just the kind of thing I hear from companies looking at SM. |
| 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? |
| AmberCadabra | How do cos view SM channels as different than all the other ways people might miscommunicate? |
| Kellye_Crane | I think it's viewed as more public, and therefore more apt to be seen by a large number of people. |
| 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 |
| MackCollier | says | putting people in charge of SM efforts that really aren't that well-versed in using these tools |
| MackCollier | says | 'How did we pick our blogger? Well since only one of us had every HEARD of blogging....' |
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