The phrase “social notworking” I heard from Justin Davies, however, the question posed by my employer is: “Where is the value in staff twittering in company time?”
I would argue that if your work involves social media, especially if you are pitching the use of social media as a marketing and PR tool then it is vital that you are seen to be actively using social media platforms day to day.
Any company is only as good as the people who work there, and in social media, it’s the people, not the company who are important. A company branded social media network which is driven by delivery of “the message” is doomed to failure without individual personalities who will interact with others in a more human way.
The value of “Personal Brand”
Whilst I appreciate that companies not directly involved with social media may need to control employee usage of twitter / facebook / myspace / friendface etc. The idea that “Personal Brand Building” has no value to the company doesn’t make sense to me. If you had just signed Christiano Ronaldo to your football team, you wouldn’t tie his shoelaces together to stop him playing well enough for other teams to want him. If you had hired Stephen Fry to present a television show, would you ask him to use a fake name and heavy disguise. Although these are internationally famous people, it’s only a matter of scale in popularity, not a different thing entirely.
Going back to the world on internet and technology, if personal brands add little value to a company, why is there such a panic over the idea of Apple without Steve Jobs? What would Wine Library TV be without Gary Vaynerchuk? How about Fast Company TV without Robert Scoble? None of these businesses NEED the personal brands created by the people involved but is it right to suggest that they add no value to the company?
Pimping out my Network
At the time of writing, I have 432 followers on Twitter. I feel pretty confident in saying that I would have far fewer if I didn’t talk about personal thoughts and ideas, discuss other people’s projects with them, exchange opinions and share news that didn’t relate to my work. However when I do post about work related stuff, for instance the seminars and workshops that we run or products that we are releasing, should I charge my employer for the use of my personal network as a publicity channel? Of course I don’t, my work is as much a part of my life as anything else that I might be doing. If I wasn’t allowed to share non-work related thoughts during work time, I’d have to stop myself from thinking about work during non-working hours.
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Law firms & accounting firms are only now realizing that by empowering their associates to build their personal brands, their firm brand will grow in celebrity & influence too.
Looking at past statistics, it is easy to see why they are scared. Those who don’t make partner track, are renowned to leave, join the competition, or become the competition. While relationships remain civil, the revenue suffers.
But as internal networking takes off, through ‘off-line’ roundtables, and LinkedIn-type groups & intranets, I predict that more will realize the benefit of personal branding as you’ve discussed.
~ Vikram Rajan
PracticeMarketingAdvisors.com
thanks Vikram, it’s good to know that this issue isn’t limited to just the so-called “new media” industry.
Thanks for adding on and writing about the idea of social notworking – some good ideas there.
Businesses should protect relationships. Staff shouldn’t nick off with clients. Some staff build a high profile – and are therefore worth more. People stick working within a business as it provides value (support, team, infrastructure etc) AND if they are valued, paid fairly and get to do interesting work. None of this is new. What is new is that it is easier to build that personal profile and brand than ever before. If you are working in the Web 2.0 space – and aren’t on top of social tools – you should choose another profession. That said, I find myself increasingly conscious of keeping focused with my time. If you can do that, you can keep it in balance…. as much as anything I coined the term when I realised I was spending a chunk of time on Twitter and not on a couple of tasks at hand.
Great post, look forward to more on it…
Hi Justin,
I find that I tend to use Twitter in a number of ways, depending on what I happen to be doing at any particular point in time. Idea recording, soliciting help or feedback, bookmarking or chatting with friends. I might write a blog post on it but I don’t know if I could do the subject justice as well as Elliot Jay Stocks did in his blessay about Twitter.
BTW. I looked up the earliest reference to the phrase “Social Notworking”, it looks like you weren’t the first, this (apparently dead) blog seems to have the earliest online mention of the phrase.