Can You REALLY Block Employees From Using Social Media At Work?

By David Osborn

September 10, 2009 · 2 min read

We recently held a webinar on social media and how it is revolutionizing the way that every industry is communicating their message – internally and externally. After the webinar we solicited comments and suggestions from a few of the attendees. A management level attendee asked the following: “I’ve been trying to block employees from using Twitter and Facebook – How do I do that?”

There is a simple answer: You can’t – and you shouldn’t want to – and here are a few reasons why:

Cyberloafing:

If you feel your employees are wasting too much time on Twitter or Facebook, you have an HR or management problem. Your employees aren’t motivated, or you are hiring the wrong kind of employee, or their role is ambiguous and they lack an understanding of their expectations and the reward system. And, unless you are willing to ban the iPhone, you can’t stop it anyway.

Angels and Evangelists:

At a recent marketing conference I attended a presentation by Sandy Carter, Vice President SOA & WebSphere Marketing, Strategy & Channels at IBM Corporation, who gave a fascinating presentation on how her business unit put social networking to work and dramatically increased their revenues, improved internal and external communication, and drove new product development. While commercial real estate isn’t the technology industry, the same principles apply. Communication works across all industries in a similar way because communication doesn’t happen between industries, it happens between people.

Since people are communicating in rapidly growing numbers through social media, then that is the new marketing frontier commercial real estate organizations need to tackle. At IBM, employees became Angels and Evangelists about what their organization was doing. They became hyper-communicative with internal employees, existing clients, and new prospects – and they did it by allowing, even encouraging, their employees to be active in the social media space.

Recapture Your Voice:

As I covered in some of my previous blog posts, if you and your employees aren’t out there Tweeting, blogging, LinkingIn or Facebooking, someone else is – and you might not like what they have to say. Getting out into the social media first – and with a large presence – allows you to recapture your voice and get your message out.