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When to Tweet and When Not to Tweet for Companies and Small Business

When to Tweet and When Not to Tweet for Companies and Small Business

Tweets at Work

Although they only contain 140 characters and are mostly ignored, tweets can have very large outcomes and cause PR disaster for companies. Some businesses have taken measures to control the use of social media at the workplace and have created policies to prevent future blows to their reputation. Here are some statistics and approaches on how to handle social media use of your employees.

How Companies Handle Social Media in the Workplace

Here are results of survey conducted by Proskauer regarding the use of social media in the workplace:

Are Any of Your Employees Allowed to Access Social Networking Websites at Work for Non-Business Use?
• None – 25%
• Some – 26.7%
• All – 48.3%

Do You Block Social Networking Sites at Work?
• Yes – 70.7%
• No – 29.3%

Do You Monitor Employee Use of Social Media?
• Yes – 27.4%
• No – 72.6%

Have You Set up Any Policies towards the Use of Social Networking?
• Yes – 55.1%
• No – 44.9%

Have You Set up Any Policies That Cover the Use of Social Networking at Work and outside of Work?
• Just at Work – 16.5%
• At Work and outside of Work – 44%
• N/A – 39.4%

Do You Believe That the Misuse of Social Networks Requires Attention?
• Yes – 43.4%
• No – 56.6%

Do You Believe There is an Advantage or Disadvantage to Allowing Employees to Use Social Networking Sites Whether They Are Specifically for Business or Not?
• Advantage for Business and Non-Business Use – 31%
• Advantage for Business Use but Disadvantage for Non-Business Use – 55.2%
• Disadvantage for Business Use but Advantage for Non-Business Use – 3.4%
• Disadvantage for Both Business and Non-Business Use – 10.3%

Has Your Business Ever Had to Take Disciplinary Actions as a Result of an Employee’s Misuse of Social Networks?
• Yes – 31.3%
• No – 68.7%

Different Approaches for Handling Employees

Method 1: Protecting the Image and Reputation of a Brand
This method is a defensive position used to prevent a brand from having a tainted image or facing legal issues. Typically, a company in this state of mind will either ban or limit social media in the workplace and set up strict guidelines to make sure that problems in the future do not occur or can be dealt with quickly.

Method 2: Spreading Brand Awareness
This is an offensive position used to share the news about a brand, what it stands for, and what it offers. In this case, social media is encouraged in the workplace to create a powerful social presence. A company with this position needs to have policies in place to protect their brand and train their employees to make sure they use social media correctly.

4 Characteristics of a Company with a Strong Social Media Presence

1. Responsive
Respond to comments and questions about your company’s products and services to show your customers that you care and are working hard to offer great customer service. Timely responses are appreciated and if your employees know how to handle a client or follower correctly, your brand will only become stronger.

2. Business-Minded
Train your employees to use social networks as a tool for generating leads, finding new hires, and closing sales.

3. Encouraging
Persuade your followers into becoming brand ambassadors by retweeting them and giving responses. In addition, promote your employees to tweet about each other to increase the positive energy in your company.

4. Strategic
A good social media plan depends on sharing frequent content. However, it is not a good idea to bombard your followers with too much content because it will make them ignore you and will cause for your brand to lose its message power.

A company must respond to its surroundings in order to be successful, and now it is becoming increasingly important for brands to have a strong social media presence and positive reputation. The rise in social media use has made it easy to spread slander and impact how an organization is viewed by the public, so it is vital to set up policies and regulations to make sure employees do not cause any destructive outbreaks. Make it a priority to train your employees and inform them of the possible outcomes of the misuse of social media to prevent a big debacle.

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