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.

Transcript:
How many social media applications are we expected to keep up with? I am overwhelmed!! - Anonymous

I know just how you feel. We are going through a Cambrian explosion in new forms of communication and it is hard to keep up. I would give you this piece of advice: don’t try to keep up with the technology. Use the technology to subscribe to people that you trust – and follow their lead. These people can be a filter on all that information – pointing you to the right things to keep up with. I use Netvibes, an RSS reader similar to Google reader, to have my own custom technology newspaper delivered to my laptop every day. If it is technology you are interested in — put David Pogue, Robert Scoble, Steve Rubel, Jeremy Toeman and similar people on your feed.

I also follow like-minded folks on Twitter who share their links and tips. Twitter, in fact has become my chief source of information on what is happening, what I should be reading etc. In this manner Steve Rubel turned me on to Posterous and Robert Scoble vetted new platforms for managing Twitter including the one I use today.. Just as you might turn to a cousin who knows everything about electronics for a tip on what digital camera to buy – you can turn to others to get the support you need and it gets at one of the most valuable elements of the Social Web – it allows you to directly subscribe to people for valuable information and tips. If you use it the right way, these tools should make your less confusing not more.

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.

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…

Answering the question: What percentage of tweets should be personal/professional interests?

Loose Transcript
I find this question fascinating because with social technologies business IS personal so that line is very blurry. – Think about some great business leaders that use these tools – GM’s
Bob Lutz on the Fastlane blog where he really shows his passion for cars, Tim O’Reilly on Twitter where it isn’t just about tech books but about big ideas, Murphy Goode Winery on Facebook – where it isn’t about cases shipped – but about wine country lifestyle. In their own ways each of these people is staying professional while letting the personal show.

That balance of personal and professional is important in a social medium – whether on a blog, a social network like Facebook or Twitter. You just need to remember – social tools follow social rules and one social rule is that talking about work all the time is boring. In following people I tend to err on the side of those that show their personality more than strictly their profession. I am more interested in what they are reading, what they find interesting rather that just hearing about their business. So I would say about 60/40 in favor of personal information. I am not saying you need to tell us about your star sign and the fact that you look good in Fall colors here…

Here is my advice on achieving balance beyond a formula: think about your company’s mission – or the larger reason that your business exists – then speak to that. In the example before it is easy to see that wine is about more than a beverage – it is about pleasure, leisure, the good life etc. and so Murphy Goode is able to cover these areas while still having a quote unquote “professional” presence. Ultimately my advice is to find themes that resonate with the aspiration of your business and that you care about personally and Tweet about that. Do that – and I will be following you along with lots of others.

This is the second installment of my new series on Forbes focusing on Social Media Guidelines and Etiquette.

Here is a rough transcript of this segment:
Q.
How should I deal with employees using tools like Twitter for personal use during work hours?
A.
To Tweet or not to Tweet – that is your question. Actually the real question here seems to be about productivity and how to maintain a healthy balance in the workplace. Modern work has plenty of outside distractions during work hours without needing help from social media; mobile phones, text messaging, instant message, dating sites and the ubiquitous, never ending “cigarette break.” To mention just a few. So in this regard, social technologies like Twitter don’t really present a new problem – they simply resurface an old productivity concern.
Let me suggest a few things I think every company should be doing specific to social technologies.

1. No matter what you decide – publish clear guidelines so that employees know where you stand. It is never good to answer these questions one at a time and retroactively – get ahead of this question now.
2. To do this – study others who have gone before you. My favorite guidelines right now are from IBM, Intel and The BBC – but there are literally dozens out there.
3. Consider getting your employees in on the act. You can do this by creating a small guidelines committee and setting up a collaborative wiki where your employees can help you refine the document. You will be killing two birds with one stone – establishing clear guidelines with employee buy-in baked in and getting some experience with collaboration.

Whatever you do – Build your guidelines around job performance, not vague concerns about productivity. Get clear on how you measure successful job performance. Then measure it. If your sales team is nailing their numbers then why should you care if they are on Facebook? If you are in the call center and you are handling the expected number of daily calls and have high quality of service – why should I care if you are on Twitter? Most companies that think they have a social media “distraction” problem actually have a measurement problem – that is – they aren’t clear on what defines a productive employee.
Employers that set meaningless rules like “no Facebook at work” or put employees under surveillance risk losing authority, respect, and control in the workplace.

Finally – having social media literate employees is a good thing – you may need them when the time comes.

This is a new video series that I have begun with Forbes.  I have long wanted a larger forum to discuss the issue of social media etiquette.  While the term “etiquette” often conjures an image of how to behave like an 19th century Englishman at the table, proper etiquette is a critical component of being successful on the social web.

Why?  Because like any social system, the web is held together by an unwritten set of norms that govern behavior.   Blogs, social networks, Twitter etc. have behavioral norms that a company trespasses at its peril (think of Walmart’s fake blog or all the consternation over astroturfing using these tools).

I will be answering questions submitted directly to Forbes (@forbestech) or me via twitter (@jmichele), this blog, or email (josh at jmicheleross.com)

For those that prefer text – here is the basic copy outline:
Q.
How are companies balancing the urge to tweet purely revenue-focused information with useful content that won’t make them a buck?
A.
The question puts up what I think is a false dichotomy; an opposition between revenue generating activities and “useful” activities that “won’t make a buck”.
Newsflash: If you aren’t “useful” to your community in social media – you don’t stand a chance of generating revenue. Tools like Twitter belong in a bigger category called “Social” technologies for a reason – They aren’t called “business” technologies. They are first and foremost “social” – and social tools follow social rules. The great thing is – we all already know these rules. Everyone knows how to be social – how to make and maintain relationships in the real world by being sincere and engaging in the normal give and take. To find balance in your Twitter activities just think of using it “socially”.
Here is what I mean. Think about Twitter like a party where your friends Dylan and Jen invite you over for what you think is a social gathering – let’s say a wine and cheese party – or a beer and Cheetos party if you prefer. Once all the guests arrive Dylan and Jen lock the front door and dive into a seriously heavy AMWAY pitch. Why you need it, why it’s good for you, why you really shouldn’t leave the party without buying in… If you are like me you would be indignant. This isn’t what you came to their house for! They aren’t “friends” at all – and this wasn’t a social gathering – it was a sales job! Jen and Dylan suck!!

Well – Twitter is like a wine and cheese party. If all you are talking to your guests about is your own money-making schemes – well then you wouldn’t have many friends then would you? Everyone will leave your Twitter Party. If however, during the course of a lovely evening at Jen and Dylan’s – Dylan turns to you and tells you about an amazing deal on Tupperware – you are going to listen.

Let the balance that you have as a well-rounded human being be your guide. If you are using Twitter in a social way – it means that you are finding interesting tidbits and passing them along for the good of the community – You are following others and passing along the information they have that is useful. If you have promotions you want to include for your users – Tweet it up… But remember, people join social networks not for your benefit but for their own…. Provide immediate value to the user first – you will be amazed what you can build once you do.
Start following @dell – or @peets_tweets they both do a good job of balancing promotions while also providing valuable information to their followers. Follow their lead.