Does Forced Social Networking Work?

Do you follow your company’s social media pages? If so, do you do it to show loyalty to the organization that pays your salary, or is it because it was “heavily encouraged” by those in the marketing department that you do so? If it is the latter, you are not alone, and it is leading to a potentially detrimental trend for the ability of social media to effect business. 

Social networking was originally developed for individuals to share and learn optionally. People had the ability to be everything from political to juvenile, and it was voluntary as to who, what, how that sharing and learning happened. When the ability for brands to participate came along, it allowed businesses to share information that made them unique and capture the attention in the same way individuals had, putting buyer and seller on the same, even playing field. 

However, this led to the inevitable: Competition. Like the web impression rivalries that have existed for the past 20 years, like brands fought to have the most fans/followers (often coming at the price of quality content). One of the easiest (and cheapest) ways to accomplish this was by “recommending” that employees of brands follow the brand’s pages. While this is a way to increase awareness in a small way, in social media especially, “small” has the potential to become “big” in just a matter of clicks. 

Based on this trend, those that observe and participate in the industry knew that businesses wouldn’t be able to help themselves, and instead of focusing on improving on existing mechanisms, the “kitchen sink” technique would rear its head - especially among larger companies. 

And it has, in the form of internal social networking. Now, instead of (or in addition to) a social networking mandate for employees with external sites, companies are using platforms like Sharepoint and Yammer to create internal social networking capabilities to have staff participating / collaborating via the company intranet. On its surface, this seems innocent enough (just another option for communicating). However, what happens if it doesn’t take? What if employees choose not to engage? Unfortunately, due to the financial investment companies often incur, the “voluntary” aspect becomes “heavily encouraged”, which leads to a potential laundry list of new problems (especially with companies that have a union component). 

Having worked with more than a few companies that have had this storyline play out, here is the advice I offer: Companies should use social networking philosophies to increase brand awareness, offer exclusive content that demonstrates identity and subject matter expertise, and communicate with a community of people that choose to communicate with you. If you are trying to use social media techniques for any other reason, think carefully about whether it is possible to accomplish and whether those you expect to participate will be there to do so.