When I teamed up with Forbes to produce a series on etiquette in the age of social networks (Social Sense and Sensibility) it was driven by a simple idea: unique cultures and social norms develop around online communities.  You ignore them at your peril.

The story of the social web is a story about how people, when given the ability to freely communicate – do so in great numbers.  And when they do they abide by social rules (be yourself, listen, build relationships through give and take etc.).  Hence, Social Tools Follow Social Rules (the current tagline of this blog).  When people are allowed to exercise their innate drive to be social they expect the companies they interact with, and work for, to get social as well.  Thus social rules become the new rules of doing business.  This is the sea change and breakthrough insight (in my opinion of course) that explains much of the discomfort and missteps that corporations are making when entering the fray.  Behaving like a corporation (impersonal press releases, constant self-aggrandizing and selling in every communication etc.) in a social medium makes you look like a psychopath.

Online etiquette isn’t just for business – it applies to everyone.

Precisely because it is a social medium, online exchanges are full of the same issues that exist offline; rude behavior, bullying, slander and so on.  In fact, online communications often stimulate bad behavior since the online environment lacks physical cues and distances the speaker from the consequences of their speech.  Just take a look at YouTube comments and you get a sense of how a social environment, lacking any controls or community norms can quickly spiral out of control.

So it was that I came to watch my colleague, Bill Evans, speaking on CNBC about the recent Facebook suicide incident.  In short, a teenage girl committed suicide, apparently after being bullied… much of it via Facebook.   I am a bit discomforted by  two elements of the story.  First, that it is a story in the first place (more on that later).  Second, some of the implied responsibility on Facebook as a platform to monitor and control conversations that take place there.

Bill does a great job, especially in pointing out that responsibility for maintaining decorum needs to be distributed across every person with a stake in it; parents, teachers, friends and Facebook.  His counterpart, Joel Reidenberg, from the Center on Law & Information Policy at Fordham University, makes solid points as well – specifically pointing at simple feedback mechanisms that would allow users themselves to flag abuse (however since Facebook relies on you actively choosing who your friends are the notion of a “report abuse” button seems a bit odd).  But he does slip in one idea that, while it sounds great on T.V.  is, to me, hopelessly unrealistic.   Essentially Reidenberg seems to charge Facebook with responsibility to police etiquette of its users by monitoring the substance of their conversation.   Sounds great and he implies that we have the technology to do this.   Well, theoretically yes.  We can apply data analysis to unstructured text but it is a very imperfect art since language (especially among youth) is in constant flux.  Consider for instance that saying “your are sick” can often be a compliment.  But when you digest a few statistics about Facebook the practical implications get mind boggling:

• There are 400 million (and growing) people on Facebook.  Only 30% of them are within the U.S.
• More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each week

• About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States (mostly using non English languages)
• There are more than 70 translations are available on the site

Facebook employees roughly 300 engineers.  That is a ratio of over 1 million users for every single engineer working at Facebook.  Obviously the first issue that gets raised is whether such monitoring and flagging is even a technically reasonable request.  Do you end that responsibility with U.S. citizens or is this a global effort?  The bigger issue gets to who is responsible for ensuring social etiquette online in the first place.

My answer is that ensuring etiquette never has been, nor ever will be the domain of automated surveillance, or platforms (online or off) that host literally billions of conversations.  Not because of the technical challenges but because of the nature of etiquette itself.  Etiquette is a social norm that is instilled through acculturation in your family, school, community and broader media diet.  You do not arrive at good etiquette through policy nor do you effectively enforce etiquette through surveillance and punishment. Policy and punishment are guardrails but it is community norms that constrain bad behavior.  Don’t take my word for it, let’s look to Confucius on this one: “If the people be led by laws, and uniformity sought to be given them by punishments, they will try to avoid the punishment, but have no sense of shame. If they be led by virtue, and uniformity sought to be given them by the rules of propriety, they will have the sense of the shame, and moreover will become good.”

Which brings me to my first point:  While the whole story seems newsworthy I feel uncomfortable with the framing. essentially  “Teen commits Suicide after Facebook Bullying”… how many suicides occur because of bullying each year?  How many can we trace to social networks?  Are social networks playing a unique and pivotal role in raising the level of suicides?  Not of these questions are raised but the frame itself seems to condemn the new technology…

Bad behavior is bad behavior whether it is committed via email, telephone, in person or social network.  Every time a new technology comes along we commit two cardinal sins:

• We attribute new cause to old problems… case in point, bullying has always taken place – now that it is taking place on Facebook we seem to think Facebook has played some unique role.  I disagree with this but I am totally open to being swayed by data.
• We expect some parental figure to govern behavior through surveillance or punishment.  Case in point –  let’s charge Facebook with ensuring that no one bullies on their platform.   To do this let’s monitor every conversation for possible bullying, inspect every escalated issue and then get in touch with the offenders and make them stop.   That is a lost cause and it put the burden on the wrong party.

Bad behavior is bad behavior whether it is committed via email, telephone, in person or social network.  Etiquette is a critical skill in the age of social networks but education and enforcement of such skills must be equally distributed among us all.

A few months ago I wrote a post for Mashable titled: Why Social Media Isn’t For Everyone.   I wrote it out of direct experience counseling clients who were rightly concerned about the  risks of exposing their brand to direct and visible customer feedback.

The main point of the article was this:

…when an organization makes an investment in social media it is a constructive opportunity to consider not only what could go wrong, but why it could go wrong. In other words, what are the valid criticisms that customers and employees might have and what you are willing to do about it. If you aren’t willing to consider the former and have no power concerning the latter, social media might not be your best bet. All too often the person making the social media investment has little control over (1) the quality of the product, (2) the pricing strategy, (3) the terms of use, (4) the company’s stance on cause-based issues (political, environmental, etc.), (5) the quality of customer service, and the list goes on. Yet these are often exactly what the customer wants to talk about.

The recent posterchild for ” Social-Media-Gone-Wrong” is Nestle.     I have been following the story at a distance and just read a post on the subject from BG Creative:

The short version of the Facebook disaster is this: Greenpeace is mad at Nestle over palm oil and a bunch of their members began taking to Facebook to express their outrage. They covered the Nestle Facebook Fan Page with wall posts and changed their profile pictures to altered versions of the Nestle logo to further make their point. The moderator of  Nestles Facebook page became flustered by the outpouring of hatred, and responded in a manner that was just a little too human. Comments such as: “Thanks for the lesson in manners. Consider yourself embraced. But it’s our page, we set the rules” certainly didn’t win him/her any fans.

The article goes on to suggest some ways Nestle could have dealt with the “crisis.”  In essence, “ignore it” “thank them and move on” or “respond with humor”  –This is solid enough counsel now that the cat is out of the bag but to me there is a much bigger point to be made: Nestle should have seen this coming a mile away. Did they not know that they engage in practices that have given rise to activist communities?  Did they not know that these activist groups are also very active on social media?

Deciding to get into Social Media should be directly related to a company’s willingness to either (1) defend a controversial position by having a direct and open conversation about it or (2) change policies to align with customer expectations.   If the company is unwilling to go with either of those options – then perhaps Social Media isn’t the right choice.   Specific to Nestle:  If they believe that Palm Oil is the best choice of ingredient and can defend it (economics, politics, environment etc.) then they should do so openly.  If they feel it is a policy that, when fully measured, does have serious negatives, then perhaps they should consider a shift in policy.  If Nestle neither wishes to change or defend itself on the merits – then they shouldn’t be operating in social media.

Transcript:
What do you do with an employee who posts less than professional opinions or images on Facebook about their employer, one of their clients or colleagues? What if it’s done on their private time?

Well the ground is littered with bad employee behavior on Social Networks – from Starbucks employees posting pictures of customers on Flickr alongside derogatory captions  to the recent Dominos employees putting videos on YouTube showing some pretty horrendous food preparation.  How a company responds has a lot to do with how they have set expectations.  We live in transitional times.  Never before have the boundaries between public and private, work and home life been so blurred as they are now.  On one side of this question; Some companies are essentially stating that all employee behavior on social networks – regardless of whether conducted at-work or at-home adhere to the code-of-conduct stated by the workplace – period.  Others are establishing looser guidelines that gently try to steer employees away from less-than-professional behavior.   In any case I think it is well within the purview of a company to establish a social media guideline that places a hard border around work and doesn’t allow the use of social technologies to publish denigrating, disrespectful or proprietary information to be released on social networks – regardless of whether this is done at work or at home.

The big point in either case is to have a clear set of guidelines published before any incident takes place. While we call the Social Web a “conversational medium” – and it is – this type of conversation is often searchable and findable by the 1.7 billion inhabitants.  Oh yeah, and it never goes away.  So companies have a very material stake in getting out in front of this.   However, if you are going to do this I will beat my drum again.   Establish clear guidelines in advance.  Don’t get surprised by this.  If, to your question, an employee posts something unfortunate, without clearly established guidelines you may not have any real means to counter it.

What would you suggest companies do to quantify how Twitter is benefiting / hurting them? (from my Radar Post – Peter P)

(OK – so a big caveat here — The quality of  my counsel depends upon asking a lot of clarifying questions – an option not open to me when creating a 3 minute video for Forbes.   As a follow up to this post I have a few referrals…  On measurement – I would head over to Metricsman and his great posts on measuring Social Media. On adopting the proper tone when using these tools I would review some previous posts on this blog.)

Transcript: Well first I would get clear on Why the particular company is using Twitter – what are the business objectives? I have seen micro-businesses like CupKates – a cupcake truck that uses Twitter to notify customers of their location – Direct sales would be the measure in that case. Dell uses Twitter to broadcast promotions and attributes about 3 million in revenue. When Tim O’Reilly tweets about an O’Reilly book, you can watch the sales go up etc. So again, start with defining your objectives then get clear on how will you measure them.

The beauty of the web is that it is measurable… With Twitter you can use metrics from Followers – a shallow measure of reach, Retweets – how much influence are your Tweets having, and click-throughs… When you embed links, use a link shortener like Bit.ly that will provide you with information on how many people clicked on your link. If you own the landing page – you can track through to leads or even sales. If you objectives are based more around awareness You can use Twitter search to determine how/where your brand is being mentioned. If you want more depth you can use monitoring tools like Radian 6, Evolve 24 or a host of others that will mine the social web for conversations that are taking place about your brand on Twitter and beyond.
As to your question of “hurting” I have been beating the drum that companies need to create clear social media guidelines that are consistent with their culture and industry context. If your employees know what is expected of them I think that is the best form of damage control you could hope for. As the saying goes – an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Last week at Web 2.0 Expo Danah Boyd , a well-respected researcher at Microsoft took the stage to deliver a keynote. In most respects the stage was what you would expect: lights, podium, giant slideshow to accompany the talk etc. In one respect the stage was totally different – there was a live, unedited Twitter stream coming from the audience being projected for everyone (except the speaker) to see.

Danah’s talk was difficult – you should read her post on the subject.  She had a rocky start – couldn’t see the audience (lights), couldn’t see the Twitter stream (projected behind her) and the podium made it difficult for her to see her notes. When critical comments began coming through on Twitter it began a downward spiral. The audience laughed at inappropriate moments, throwing Danah off her game.  The audience then fed on her increasing anxiety and so on.

Danah’s post is remarkable in that she makes a painful personal experience even more public in order to foster dialogue on the sort of culture we are creating with social technologies.   Hats off to Danah.   The whole spectacle seems to present a great learning experience for all involved; event organizers, public speakers, audience members.

Architecting a Proper Social Experience
In my opinion (and with the benefit of hindsight of course) the architecture of the experience was bound to create problems. Speaker facing audience but can’t see them. Audience facing speaker and having the ability to project their thoughts onto a screen for everyone except the speaker to see. It doesn’t help relate the speaker’s intent, it doesn’t clarify anything for the audience (presuming they came to listen to the speaker), it makes the false equation that the speaker’s well planned presentation allies well with the spontaneous commentary of the crowd, and ultimately it alienates both parties from each other. I have moderated panels by fielding questions in real time from the audience using Twitter. It worked extremely well because it didn’t divide the panelists’ attention, but it allowed a richer, more diverse set of questions to be posed.   In each case we need to ask ourselves how the technology will serve our communication goals.  Which brings me to the next point…

Thinking the Trend is the End Game
The mistake above is part of a larger mistake that is being made everywhere; embracing a trend without thinking of why you are doing it. In this case the trends are (1) the audience is now part of the conversation and (2) we consume content in smaller, faster bits. These trends are not applicable to every situation. In the case of a large public event where the audience is coming precisely to see a roster of well-known speakers (that is how all conferences do their marketing), there is an inherent and justified asymmetry in the flow of attention. Large audience pays attention to a single speaker.    Just because “the audience now has a voice” doesn’t mean it should be exercised without interruption.  There is still value is prolonged focus, there is still value in the art of the lecture, there is still value in simply listening. In fact I have argued that being able to focus and having a capacity to sit still and listen will be the traits of the next generation of leaders in our staccato-signal world.

The Audience is Responsible
We don’t have much experience with simultaneously being able to be present in a group setting, heard by our peers and yet relatively anonymous to that same group. Previously, if we wanted to raise our hands to say something – we had to pay the price of being identified with the comment or question that we asked. This is why your professor always said, “there are no dumb questions” – to encourage people to accept the price of being identified with a dumb question by reframing the equation. Yes, you have a Twitter handle and someone could look you up… but this doesn’t carry the same stigma as being publicly identified in-the-flesh.

Recently I listened to a Fresh Air interview with Mike Judge, creator of King of the Hill, Beavis and Butthead etc.  In a very thoughtful, funny interview Judge stunned me by saying that he was most proud of Beavis and Butthead. He thought they were cultural archetypes; two un-self-aware do-nothings heaping criticism upon the outside world, while remaining completely oblivious to their own sorry condition. Perhaps it is a bit harsh – but often the Twitterverse allows us to be Buttheads – free to heap scorn upon public figures from the safe, cozy confines of our computers.   As a frequent audience member at conferences I am recommitting to the act of giving my attention and focus on the speakers I have paid to see.

Full Disclosure:  I have worked at O’Reilly Media (co-organizers of the event) and know both Web 2.0 Expo Conference chairs.   I have nothing but respect for how well they do their job and continually push the boundaries regarding how to enhance the event experience.

Here is a link to a transcript of Danah Boyd’s talk.  It is worth paying attention to.

Transcript:
Question: From a branding standpoint, what is the best practice when it comes to differentiating between an individual’s personal brand and their business’ brand? Where is the line between the two, particularly for small businesses? – Alora Chistiakoff

My Response: Employers have always expected certain individuals to bring their own personal “brand” to work – A newspaper columnist brings readers, a salesperson brings a rolodex, an executive brings credibility and a network of trusted talent and so on. So where is the line between the work you do on your own – say running a marketing blog, and the work that you do for a company – say running their marketing team.

Here is my advice For employees: I would say that it is in your best interest to build your own personal brand that follows you. This may be as simple as just a LinkedIn profile that allows you to keep a public, findable resume up to date – it may be answering questions and engaging with the LinkedIn audience – it could be blogging about your own expertise. Doing so will deliver value to your current employer or it may help you get hired by your next one.

Here is my advice for companies: Encourage your employees to build their own brands. Here is why: “Reputation” is substantial source of value for a company. And unlike intellectual property it can’t be patented and it can’t be “owned” in perpetuity. It’s earned through relationships. If you hire a marketing specialist – it is an asset if they have a record as a trusted blogger. If you hire a recruiter, it is an asset if they are a trusted personality on recruiting sites. I can’t really think of one area where bringing a strong personal brand to the table is not an asset. I do think you need to take some measures to protect yourself: (1) clear guidelines around the use of social media so that these rock star employees know what is expected of them and (2) clear measures of job performance so that you can feel comfortable that their attention to their personal brand isn’t coming at the expense of their job. If every employee is a rock star in your company, you should be so lucky.

So this is a hard question to distill into two minutes. “Is there a difference between online versus offline etiquette?” The answer is obviously yes. I have met a few trolls in real life and found them to be engaging and polite – often soft spoken. I would give the horrid commenters on YouTube the benefit of the doubt as well.
However the video series is aimed at giving people in business advice on how to behave so I took the answer from that perspective.

Transcript:
I read this question as, “what are the differences between online and offline social etiquette”
Ideally, none. In an ideal world – and my personal rule-of-thumb – you would behave online as though you were sitting at a table with your best friend, your boss and your mom. It takes a lot of the juicy bits off the table but do you really want to publish those pieces to the world? I don’t think so. Here are a few tips to keep you out of trouble online and off…

• Use your real identity – no one appreciates an imposter
• Listen and understand the context before you jump in
• Be Nice – sounds silly but just as in real life – it goes a long way
• Disclose any conflicts of interest or paid relationships up front
• Know your facts: argue for ideas and back them up. Never succumb to personality arguments
• Finally, Don’t Lie – This one sounds so simple but it is disarmingly hard in online business…What was considered acceptable business tactics in another generation, such as creating a front group to represent your opinions – Working Families for Walmart – being a textbook case – Is tantamount to lying when using a social technology like a blog – and no one takes kindly to lying.

The Social Web is about people – not technology – and as with any social grouping, etiquette are the tacit rules that keep everyone in check. So while the word etiquette sounds trivial – it is a critical success factor in approaching the Social Web.

In doing some research for my next Forbes article I was reminded of a warning I share with clients;  On the web Past is Present, nothing ever dies.  To wit:

Walmart and Edelman created a fake blog about two happy-go-lucky folks “Walmarting Across America” that created a firestorm of controversy.  Despite shutting down the campaign, pulling the website and issuing an apology – the site images, and repudiations from the press can still be found.

When  Terry Moran used Twitter to bit-cast Obama’s interview, Obama, off-the-record, called Kanye West a jackass.  Moran tweeted it – then regretted it.   He pulled his Tweet but too late…. It was everywhere.

In a normal social context you might think your brainless comment or slip of the tongue will quickly pass out of memory.  Often, after leaving a social or business gathering I will reflect on things I could have said more eloquently or with more tact.   On the social web you are often on-the-record, forever so judgment and a new sensitivity to the norms of the Social Web are critical.

This is the latest video in my Social Sense and Sensibility series on Forbes.  This video is a bit more like a tutorial – answering the question: “How do you filter Facebook to cause the least amount of offense and maximize privacy.”

Enhanced Transcript:
Just like the human brain – most people only use Facebook to about 10% of its capacity. Facebook has a lot of features that allow you to filter information that, as you say, maximizes privacy while minimizing offense. Let me give you a couple of tips here and a link to a lot more information.

Create a few categories of friends. You do this by clicking on your Friends tab and then selecting “All Friends.”  Once there you will see “Create New List”

Personally, I have created three types of “friends” – Family, Professional and Social. I don’t really want anything more complicated than that.
Next, go to your settings tab in they upper right. Once there select privacy.

Friend Lists can have specific privacy policies applied to them.   Most of the functions you want will reside in your Profile.  This is where you can control what others see and where you can ensure photos from your “private” life won’t be visible to your  professional colleagues (see big disclaimer at the bottom of this).
If you want to have more personal relationships only on Facebook – it is simple to remove yourself from search results.

This may help avoid the dreaded request that comes from your boss…

All of this being said, almost every change you make will not be visible to the other party – meaning you are not going to offend anyone.
How you set up your Facebook account has a lot to do with how you use it and how much privacy you need – Just remember, there is no substitute for exercising discrtion and never posting things that you don’t want to go public. You never know….

Here are a few links to some great tutorials on how to achieve this and more (in total they are a bit redundant):
How to Use Facebook Privacy Settings

10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know

Group Privacy Settings on Facebook

Here is another in my ongoing Forbes series, Social Sense and Sensibility. The idea is to help organizations understand how to properly leverage social tools for business use.
If you have any questions you would like answered please leave them in the comments, email me, or use Twitter. Rough transcript appears below the video.

Should you post work-related requests in your Facebook update?

Well that all depends on what your social network looks like inside of Facebook. If you are connecting with business partners, colleagues and customers – then I would say in that context it is fine since those requests will be reaching people who might care – or be able to support you.
Personally I use LinkedIn for all work related material. For the rest of my Life – there’s Facebook. So in my case – putting out work requests in Facebook wouldn’t make any sense unless I think my 20 year old sister in-law can give me advice on finding the right CRM application.
I use LinkedIn for a few reasons. First, LinkedIn is explicitly about business – so there is no confusion. Secondly – LinkedIn has a set of business-specific tools (answers, profiles that are structured around my resumé etc.) that help you make those work related requests.
If you are using Facebook for work consider creating a Friends list titled “professional” or “work” – that way you can gain a small semblance of distinction between these two aspects of your life.

Finally while we are on the topic of mixing work and Facebook let me sneak in one of my pet peeves, Don’t “friend” subordinates at work. This often puts them in an awkward position of being asked to expose personal parts of their lives. After all, you may not really have any professional interest what Joe in Accounting looks like after 12 beers and a losing game of strip poker…