It’s interesting how lately there has been a little bit of a backlash against social media in the workplace and traditional media. Most especially if your workplace is on a football field, basketball court, hockey rink or baseball diamond. While the NFL has banned Twitter from being used within a certain time span on game days, the other leagues are hot on its heels with their own clamp downs. And it’s not just pro sports franchises that want their employees to keep their head in the game. (no pun intended) The majority of companies in the US ban social media in the workplace; including Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Linkedin. (Seriously…that one was made specifically for business networking was it not?) This according to recent research from Robert Half Technology, the international IT staffing firm. The problem supposedly lies in businesses not seeing the profitability of social media. It is seen now by some as a distraction from the many tasks at hand instead of a tool to aid in connectivity. Or at the very least, employers are challenged by the new platforms and technologies, finding the utility of social media to be ambiguous. “How does this make me money?” The business owner will ask. To which the accountant will respond “It doesn’t appear to” but that’s a narrow way of looking at things. In fact a recent study done by Citibank shows that a minority but increasing number of small companies entering the social media sphere have found these platforms to be useful in generating business leads or revenue.

Small business have been timid in joining the party because of these traditional ways of looking at media, advertising and concerns about the valid role of social media in productivity and profit. But if social media didn’t generate profit then why did the American Federal Trade Commission roll out the first major piece of advertising legislation since the 1980s specifically to deal with issues related to companies using blogs and social media to market products? Advertising has adapted to the point where the old rules hardly apply to the new media and methods. And though social media and word of mouth can work for small business in Vancouver or elsewhere, it is the scalability factor that makes the tool so powerful for larger companies. Viral advertising is a great example. The FTC is continuing to work closely with the industry so it can better understand viral marketing and issues of legality. You can make a viral ad campaign for…well you can make it for free. And then you can send it out for…free. And it can reach millions and millions of people. Your overhead? Free. Your ROI on that piece of media if successful? About as good as it gets.

Viral campaigns are most powerful when they reaches millions, like grapeshot from a cannon. And it also works best when it includes a call to action that draws consumers into sites and stores; geographically dispersed and numerous like chains or franchises. They are also great if you generate ad revenue based e-commerce or by the number of unique visits to your content driven site. Mom and pop stores with a single location don’t benefit from social media grapeshot, they benefit from using it as a more focused and directed tool to engage their clientele and local market. So for the accountants that look at the numbers and say social media isn’t making money, just because the Facebook account isn’t attached to the cash register- they need to assess how it’s being used. This goes for both geographically dispersed companies and locally focused ones- because obviously it’s making money for a lot of other companies. It’s become such a powerful force in our world that it is being re-assesed by managers of companies, major sports leagues, our highest legal institutions and even entire countries as was the case of Facebook and the Canadian Privacy Commission. So unless a business owner or manager wants to exist in splendid isolation from the rest of the world, people such as myself suggest they work with the forces of nature rather than against them. If a business is anti-social media, they are being anti-social-period. And we all know how successful anti-social people are in the marketplace.

Related posts:

1. Small companies marketing with social media too
2. Social media party still raging, but where’s the profits? Lending Club might know
3. Facebook, Freud and Marx: Social stratification and profit in social media

Tags: Blogs and social media, e-commerce, Facebook, Federal Trade Commission, FTC, NFL, privacy, profitability of social media, Social media banned, vancouver

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