I’ve been giving some thought to the workplace’s reaction to social media and how it is being used in the workplace, especially the insurer’s workplace. I will admit that I am a big fan of Linkedin, that I have a couple of Twitter accounts, and that I call it Crackbook. I don’t consider myself a social media junkie – it is a way to check in to what is going on, but it isn’t the be all and end all for me. And I am not the type of person that thinks that we are witnessing a revolution of everything we have known simply because we can tell people we are eating a nice sandwich in 140 characters (that’s Twitter’s limit). Malcolm Gladwell says that Twitter won’t lead the revolution, I know that Facebook doesn’t actually do much to enriching your existing relationships, and LinkedIn isn’t the next great way to get your next big sale. Facebook really is more than Farmville, although it isn’t that easy to tell most of the time, and there are many times when Lamebook is far more entertaining.
The truth is, though, that companies are scared out of their minds by social media – they are scared they don’t understand it, scared that they are missing something, and scared that their competition isn’t. Lots of business people are more concerned with how it lets them build their “personal brand” (more on this little nugget later), essentially trying to craft each micro-post to boost their stature within their industry. Let’s not forget that they consider most of it a waste of time, and are scared that employees are using it at work and, you know, dogging it. So what should be acceptable as far as social media goes? I want to look at each of these four things separately, and delve into them a little deeper, first by looking at the things that scare everyone.
Companies are scared that they don’t understand social media
Most companies are petrified that they don’t “get” Twitter. (I have to admit, I’m a pretty strong believer that Twitter could go away tomorrow, and really everyone would get over it rather quickly. Same with Tumblr.) They believe that to understand social media, they need a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account, carefully controlled and crafted to spout out interesting offers, interesting tidbits, about their company. Really, for most companies that isn’t correct. Take Zurich Insurance North America’s feed. They describe themselves as:
“The latest insurance and risk management news from Zurich in North America, a leading property & casualty insurer and part of Zurich Financial Services Group. http://www.zurichna.com“
Thrilling. What do they post? Most recently, checking your winter tire treads if you live near Pittsburg, because it is snowing – the same week that rooves were collapsing in Edmonton due to snow load. The rest is mostly re-tweets of mildly insurance related items. They also gaze at their own navel – all of the news is in fact news about Zurich.
Another shining example is Desjardins Insurance Group’s feed, which claims:
“We’re the largest cooperative financial group in Canada. We offer complete financial services to 5.8 million members and clients.
http://www.desjardins.com/”
They in fact post mostly about economic news, trying to drive people to check their financial products and switch to DGI.
More innovative is ICBC:
“The official
ICBC account. Road-ready tweets from
ICBC Senior Communications Specialist Karin Basaraba. Follow us for road safety, insurance & licensing tips.
http://icbc.com”
They do provide practical tips – bt dey r ofn in txt spk, for brevity purposes. COMMUNICATE. If you use b4, I presume you are 6teen.
The point that I’m making is that if you want to get someone’s attention on twitter – given that people follow ridiculous numbers of streams, so they are really ignoring 99.9% of what flashes on the screen – you need to actually provide value. I don’t for a minute claim that my twitter feed does that – I mostly repost stuff that I find interesting, and maybe others will. I’m not trying to establish credibility with my customers through a twitter feed though, I am just posting interesting stuff. Unless you are, as a company, prepared to commit actual resources to what goes on your feed, you will look a little ridiculous and fall flat. You may as well tweet the daily special from the deli down the road.
Companies are scared that they are missing something
We saw this in the early ’90s, when everyone had a website but no one knew what to do with it. Let’s get one – that will be enough. This web 2.0 stuff is important, let’s go buy some and deploy it. Oh wait, it doesn’t work that way?
Companies are desperate to not miss out on the next big thing, but they are rarely innovative on how it will be used. They don’t know how to use Facebook, they just know that they need a fan page and a like button. No business is driven by the number of likes you have. Clicking a like button is an apathetic response akin to “I have a thought about this but I’m too lazy to express it.” Likewise they have a twitter feed but are often disappointed that they don’t automatically get a lot of followers, and it still looks like a massive waste of time given they only have a couple thousand people following them – and likely the converted. ICBC, the largest auto insurer in North America and the corporation that also controls the issuing of driver’s licences only has 1,250 followers. At what point does someone ask “
what is the point?” Someone should really listen to that person and try very hard to answer that question convnincingly. I’m not sure anyone would convince me.
Companies are scared that their competition does understand social media
This is often the reason that a company gets involved in social media in the first place. Our competitor is there. We should be too. I would encourage anyone to look at some of the feeds I’ve linked to above, and see what they think and whether that would inspire a customer or (in the insurance world…) a broker to follow you. In most cases it wouldn’t. Maybe folks with insomnia, but then they will probably have just provided them a cure. You should not lemming your way into social media, as a corporation. You should have a great reason to be there. If you need one, follow the
Starwood feed for a while, or the
BlackBerryHelp feed. They get it. Your competition likely doesn’t, and if they do, you have to find something
original to combat it.
Companies are scared that their employees are wasting time on social media
This is one of the biggest ones, and I will tell you that I tend to agree… mostly. I would agree that Facebook is something that should be done on your own time.
Youtube has very good reasons to be blocked – it can be a total time suck. And places like myspace and imvu are really ones that don’t need to be wollowed at work.
I do find value in Twitter, as I follow some insurance-related news sites that I don’t get e-mails from. I follow trade journals for breaking news. I follow other insurance professionals for their ideas, and many of these are people I haven’t met and an unlikely to. I find immense value in Linkedin, as there are some really good and specific discussion forums on the network. But other than that – I would agree that the majority of these sites should be blocked, with a noteable exception – blogs. My word,
let your staff blog. Encourage it. Let them express their thoughts about their professional lives and have discusions around topics that they find interesting in their work. Rejoice that they might be passionate enough to actually write about it. Let them have access to Twitter for all the same reasons.
People are trying to inrease their “personal brand”
Honestly one of the more over-used buzz-terms of the past year or so,
personal brand refers to what people would find out about you on the internet. It drives me a little bananas. I try not to post anything embarrasing on Facebook, and I have a lifelong goal of never appearing on Youtube, as that would mean I had done something both embarrassing and stupid. However, I’m allowed to live my life. Judge me by my Facebook posts if you want, but that’s my private life, I belive. However, LinkedIn I tend to make sure is very professional, as is my own twitter feed, which is basically reblogging of stuff I’ve seen.
The idea that you have to “work your personal brand” is a little ridiculous, but more ridiculous is the fact that companies will hire people to crawl your social media as they are hiring you. No matter what, you do have the right to have a private life and have your own opinions. Expressing something on a social network like Facebook which, I hope, you are smart enough to ensure is only visible by your friends – that is like saying something out loud at a party. It could get back to someone, but it could happen if you said it out loud too.
Insurance is my profession, and one of my passions. Motorcyclist, runner, skier, photography newbie. Nerdy tech geek, craft beer enthusiast.
Thoughts are my own. Snark is omni-present.
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