Cheers from freezing Canada

I just wonder how long people will tolerate this sort of overlap between work and personal opinion. I know it happens all the time but having a company tell you what you can say ‘off premises and off hours’ is something that might not fly as we express ourselves more and more digitally. I know it would get under my skin. When you did campaigns for certain customers were you restricted after its over from writing about what worked and what didn’t or do you take liberties to say whatever you want?

Great insights – thanks for sharing… since the medium is still so new I think that a lot of companies are struggling with these decisions.

I’ve seen extremes. My brother is not allowed to even mention where he works online and has to delete comments that reference it. On the other hand you have companies that are happy to have their employees blog and discuss.

I think that one of the important things in social media is to clearly distinguish between personal opinion and when you are representing the company.

Thanks so much for sharing your insights….

- Krista

Nice post. Just want to add a couple thoughts. I disagree partially with your stance because I think companies need to empower their employees more to speak directly to customers in general, but agree that there should be guidelines. For one thing, possibly having someone who is the outreach person, who is a ‘relationship manager’ be the point person for SM interactions would enable a consistency of message, while still enabling personal interactions. I think NOT putting out canned responses goes a looooong way to improving your brand and trust.

I do however LOVE your analogy of comparing SM interactions to talking to the press rather than a 1:1 interaction. Great example.

I’d wonder though, just because employees may be ‘banned’ from using SM as a response tool in interacting with customers, doesn’t necessarily mean that they aren’t talking about the business (negatively or positively) on social media networks under their own handles. I wonder if its better to treat employees like adults, enable them through some training and hope for the best, rather than try to control message through restrictions. Employee opinions are bound to get out there no matter what. Sorry for the long comment, but your post got me thinking….

@ryancmiller