A blind eye to social media?

Been digging through a survey about social media just put out by Russell Herder and Ethos Business, one of those mysterious groups that does that sort of thing. These folks surveyed more than 400 executives to check out what they had to say about their use and perceptions of social media.

You can read the whole report here, but I thought I'd offer my take.

• 87 percent of those surveyed said that social media was not included in their crisis communications plan.
• 40 percent said: "Our technology blocks employee access to online social media for any purpose."
• 81 percent see social media as a corporate security risk
• 69 percent have no written social media policy and
• 73 percent see their companies increasing their use of social media (82 percent for brand building, 60 percent for networking and 32 percent for customer service)*

All in all, a good overview of what's kicking around in the brains of business decision makers. But it's easy to wonder if we should lose faith or just remain patient.

It's always been tough for the early adopter crowd to chillax, while the rest of the world tries to hurry up. Businesses are going to be more cautious than the fictional techie in his mom's basement.** But the problem I see is that caution borders on paranoia about new technology.

The worry about security, in my mind, is always on thin ice. Informed, well-trained and educated employees who know how to avoid sites that could endanger a system are always better than a blanket ban of sites for banning sake. As we bang our collective heads against the walls about how to make our school kids more competitive with the world, huge chunks of the Internet are inaccessible by teachers and students because of "security" concerns.

Lift the veil on the web to more workers, more students and more teachers and some of them will find better ways to communicate, share insights and (maybe) discover the next big thing. But turning off the tap to the web just makes for more problems than solutions.

And for a business owner to just say no, means that they are choosing to stay out of the conversation and link economy that is thriving now on the web. No engagement means they have chosen to give that insight, that potential good will with customers and that profile to their competitors.

From the looks of it, a majority of execs want to dive into the social media pool, but have to figure out what it is first. Hasn't the web gotten mainstream enough that every business needs to keep up with what is happening online in order to thrive as a business? While members of the geek squad like me may think so, even decades after the web was born, it's not the case.

Companies are still stepping out by not having a policy in place for use, by not including it in their crisis communications and not embracing the web as an active, rather than a passive, tool.

If the primary concern for many of these companies is protection, which is why they bring the firewall down to keep the bad guys out, while not use two of the best pieces of protection out there in enacting a social media policy for employees and figuring out how to use social media once something flares up in their business.

Two essentials that aren't going anywhere for a while. Maybe the execs will look their way soon enough.

FOOTNOTES

* Execs could give more than one answer on reasons for using social media.

** And for the record, it was my Mom - and Dad's - basement.

ESPN, USMC, NFL, Oh my.

Three of the most successful, rigorous, tightly guarded and feared organizations in the country – The NFL, the U.S. Marines and ESPN – threw down the social media clamps on their personnel this week.

All three are the best in the world at what they do – whether that’s protecting Sundays in the falls, protecting freedom or protecting the college football bowl system – and they all want to make sure their troops are in line with the message.

The Marine Corps cited concerns about security, saying recent attacks on Facebook and Twitter by “bad actors” have provoked questions about the safety of Marines using the sites, as well as problems with the potential for information getting out that may put them in harm’s way.

The NFL has left Twitter policy up to its teams, some of which have jumped in and warned players that out-of-bound tweets (let alone in-game ones) will be subject to fines. While leagues like the WNBA encourage players to engage in social media, even as the game is going on. The big shots like the NFL and NBA want to keep a close eye on the messages players are putting out. The reason? More on that later.

Finally, ESPN has told its “talent” that any sports-related content belongs to the network and can’t be casually tweeted. So, if someone tweets Doug Gottlieb to ask about the Bedlam game, he has to ask his supervisor if it’s OK to say OU will win.

The Marine Corps’ stance is about the only one I can live with. We are often consulted on how these social media policies should work best for business. Protecting internal information is a top priority on my list. Businesses don’t want their information exposed, whether it’s potential internal deals, hiring and firing decisions or proprietary information. The Marines have the utmost internal information they want out of the Web. They are sacrificing connections with loved ones, of course, but loose lips sink ships. (So loose tweets, sink fleets?)

The NFL and the ESPN, on the other hand, want to sacrifice personality for control of their marketing message. In both cases, the individuals in each business have built themselves into an important personal brand, whether it’s Chad Ochocinco or John Clayton. Their employers want to make sure those personal brands are serving the overall brand – hence the clampdown. But, in the long run, the lack of personality and freedom to post online is only going to hurt the bigger companies. Those regulated Tweets and updates on social media are not going to serve any special purpose in the social media sphere any more than an RSS feed of headlines would.

Social media is here to provide texture, context and personality to an individual, which will lead to connections, communication and community with other users. While ESPN and the NFL have monster brands and have made few mistakes, turning off the ability to have hundreds of employees connect with people who are already their fans is a move in the wrong direction.

Wrangling Social Media Tidbits

There’s so much to blog about, including some leftovers from my trip to New York City to talk about Twitter. Here are some social media tidbits in rapid-fire fashion:

• In case you were wondering about the 140 Characters Conference and my speech about the Oklahoma Twitter community’s use of hashtags and mashups during our ice storms, tornadoes and wildfires, you can watch the whole she-bang right here. I start at about the 1:50 mark.

• Stephanie Smirnov, president of DeVries Public Relations, was in the audience and wrote a nice and flattering blog post about her impressions. High praise for someone like me who is just starting out, in the PR world.

• Updates are happening fast and furiously in the world of Twitter applications. I was able to meet the guys who run Hootsuite, one of my favorite sites for managing multiple accounts. Their new version, which I was lucky enough to get a beta invite to, is even better and is a really good emulation of TweetDeck, but inside the browser. If you don’t use Hootsuite, you should check it out just for the fact that it allows you to time-release Tweets for later posting. A great time saver. Check out Hootsuite here.

• If anyone needs an icebreaker to talk about the power of social media, now is the time. While the Time Magazine cover story gave Twitter buzz, I think what’s happening in Iran gave it bones. The use of social media during these tumultuous past two weeks has shown it is now an indispensable part of anyone’s communication with the world at large. This works for businesses as well as people. Andrew Sullivan’s blog, which is a daily read for me, has done the best job of not only emphasizing this point, but for providing some of the best dispatches via tweet that are coming out of Teheran.

• One of the best moves a company can make before they dive into the deep end of social media is to figure out a policy for how they want their employees to engage with customers online and what, if any, restrictions they want to put on the content of those interactions. Strangely, some of the biggest bumblers in this area have been media companies. The Associated Press is the latest, with their employees’ union crying foul over the fact that the AP wants employees to monitor what their connections are saying on Facebook and delete any comments that might reflect poorly on AP.

Yes, that’s right. If your crazy uncle Earl sends you a message about his awesome weekend of debauchery in Vegas, you could get bounced by the bosses.

To me, that crosses the line. Companies do need policies in place to serve as guidelines and that could prevent crisis, but they only have so much leverage.

Mashable, as always, has great coverage of the story here.

• And if you’re still in the mood to drive up some Oklahoma-based hashtags on Twitter, here’s the latest - #OKHeat.