Your reputation in a twitterer's hands

AS MORE marketers and companies use social media such as Twitter and Facebook in their professional and personal lives, the lines are becoming blurred as to what constitutes an official company line and what is private comment.

In the past few days a spat between a senior executive at IBM and a journalist was played out publicly on Twitter. IBM's head of digital marketing, Martin Walsh, says the tweets directed at technology journalist Nate Cochrane did not represent the views of his company, despite his Twitter profile clearly identifying him as an employee there.

The clash raises the issue of brand management in an era of social media, where everyone has an opinion and a place to publish it.

A similar issue confronted Telstra last year when one of its employees was identified as the person behind the Twitter account of the Fake Stephen Conroy, commenting on issues concerning the publicly listed telco. The controversy prompted Telstra to develop guidelines for employees using social media.

The chief executive of the Australian Interactive Media Industry Organisation, John Butterworth, says companies need to be clear what their expectations are of employees when they use social media to comment. "I'd encourage employees to think about it very carefully too. Good, old-fashioned common sense needs to come into play," says Butterworth.

Regional director of Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence, Brian Giesen, says his company advises all its clients to have a social media policy in place.

But Butterworth warns against prohibition as a way of managing brand communication in social media, and says it can act as a powerful marketing tool when encouraged.

"In terms of content marketing, which is what all these social media are used for, if you have staff who are fantastic commentators, (then) use them. The worst thing that you can do is ban people. That's not a great reflection on doing business in the 21st century."

In dealing with the Fake Stephen Conroy issue, Telstra management had to consider whether to stop staff using social media. "We're learning on the fly. We could have done the typical corporate thing and clamped down. But we're a communications company; it would be pretty silly to clamp down," says Telstra group managing director, public policy and communications, David Quilty.

Telstra has developed a policy and a training module for staff on the use of social media based on what Quilty calls the three Rs: responsibility, respect and representation.

Those employees who use social media for Telstra in an official capacity are trained and accredited, says Quilty. "It's actually worked better than we expected. It's a learning curve and a lot of common sense needs to prevail. Our view is if we facilitate, hopefully (the staff) will be advocates and be positive."

Quilty says that with the potential benefits of employees engaging with social media come risks. "It depends on what people feel about the company as to what they might say online on Facebook or offline at a barbecue. There's real opportunity with social media, but there's incredible risk as well," he says.

DRAWING THE LINE

Social media do's and don'ts

DO

Apply common sense

Draw on talented commentators in your organisation

Create guidelines for use of social media

DON'T

Censor

Prohibit

Allow your employees to confuse official and private conversations about your brand