Social Media Costs -- and Some Workers Are Paying With Their Jobs
"The only thing [companies] will succeed in doing by taking such an approach is to establish an atmosphere of mistrust, which is very counterproductive at a time where businesses are encourages to be more transparent and open," Nicholls says. "In order to move forward with the social revolution that is impacting the business world, companies need to open up their organizational culture."
Then again, companies can go overboard embracing the social revolutions. There's an odd role-reversal happening right now with social networking in the enterprise: Some companies are asking employees to leverage their personal Twitter and FacebookFacebook accounts as a megaphone for marketing messages. Alles zu Facebook auf CIO.de
"This is an interesting problem that is emerging on the social media landscape," Nicholls says. "There can be benefits for employees in using their personal accounts for business purposes, but companies cannot oblige their employees to draw on their personal social networks for corporate advantage."
Some employees have huge Twitter followings -- they're known as social media "influencers" -- and digital marketers covet them. Employee influencers can score points with management by tapping their networks to promote their companies. But there might be a catch: If employees give consent, companies might make tell them what words they can and cannot use on their personal accounts.
"Social media is relatively a fresh field, and both companies and employees are still learning how to deal with it in the most satisfying way for both parties," Nicholls says.