I’ve been wondering if there’s any research to suggest that those making the decision to block employee access to social media are mostly non-users of these technologies. There’s anecdotal evidence that organizations that reject blocking are led by people who recognize the value of social media based on their own engagement with it, while the comments of those who defend blocking suggest a high degree of unfamiliarity with the sites they are banning.
I routinely read quotes from executives who have blocked access insisting, for instance, that time spent on Facebook produces no business value. In the meantime, those leaders who are active on Facebook have sussed the business value based on their own interactions — the ability to identify new hires, to hear directly from customers, to evangelize the organization and its products, and so on.
According to a survey from the Government Executive Business Council, half of federal mangers don’t use Facebook at all,and nearly 15% use it less than once per week. Close to 60% of this group has never logged into LinkedIn; 23% it less than once a week. More than 80% said they never Tweet. Seven percent log on less than once each week.
There is no correlation in the study between this lack of familiarity with networks (an obvious consequence of never examining them) and efforts to keep employees from accessing them, but you have to figure these federal managers would be more inclined to buy into the hype and succumb to the temptation to keep employees away from Facebook and other new-media venues. Formal research would probably produce interesting results.
In the meantime, since we’re talking about federal managers here, if the administration is serious about getting government to pursue transparency, collaboration and participation with the public, I agree with NextGov blogger Allan Holmes, who suggests, the government “may want to first encourage federal managers to use these tools.”
(Allan, how about a link to the survey results?)
Hat tip to Tony Molloy for pointing me to the post.
1 comment so far ↓
Hi Shel,
I speak to executive groups every month here in Australia. A major section of what I present is around social media access and policies to govern use. We’ve started to track the level of access a company allows against how educated an executive feels he or she is in relation to social media – happy to share some of the stats with you.
I think you’re on the right track – as what I’ve seen is that education generally eases fears and leads to quite profound change in relation to how these tools are viewed and used.
There are several points though that I bring up as ‘show stoppers’.
Firstly, mainstream media around the world is focused only on the negative – so every time something blows up it hits mainstream press and is simply another reason to not allow access. Until mainstream media starts to promote the good stories – we’ve got a fight on our hands.
Secondly, allowing access to these tools means employees need to commit to their side of the bargain. This is a two-way street and the obligations are mutual. My issue here is that many social media experts pound the pulpit, bashing companies for blocking access, but with scant regard for the realities of running a business. When was the last time one of the social media A-team spoke about the obligations on employees to act responsibly?
So whist we must continue to argue for access, we also must act on our obligation to educate – but this education needs to be a two fold – educate executives to help ease their fears and help them understand, whilst educating employees about mutual obligations, reasonable use, and ‘don’t forget your day job’.
Leave a Comment