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Category : Home Industry developments
Although our future industries (PR, Advertising and Marketing) seem to embrace interactive media with excitement and fervour, it appears that companies within these sectors feel the need to try and control it. With the freedom of the internet is this really possible?
Research carried out by Porter Novelli reveals the top three PR agencies to have most staff on Twitter are Hotwire PR, Consolidated PR and Porter Novelli.
PR Week reported these findings last week to highlight a growing trend for PRs to use Twitter as an additional communication platform. With more and more practitioners using social media there is more chance that their personal and private lives intertwine.
To prevent any issues arising with personal opinions clashing with corporate opinions, or those of clients, Porter Novelli have implemented some guidelines for staff to abide by when using social media.
These “guidelines� don’t simply apply to keeping a blog, but to the following types of online activity too:
- maintain a profile page on one of the social or business networking sites (like LinkedIn, Facebook, or MySpace);
- comment on other people’s blogs for personal or business reasons;
- leave product or service reviews on retailer sites, or customer review sites;
- take part in online votes and polls; or
- take part in conversations on public and private web forums (message boards)
Even editing a wiki page counts! So they have summed up this type of activity as “Anything you do online where you share information that might affect your colleagues or clients�.
The “guidelines” are more or less within reason with rules such as “you must do nothing to bring the company into disreputeâ€?. Pretty commonsensical I would say. But some rules seem to force the employees’ corporate personality onto their private lives and prevent them ‘being themselves’ online. For example, when using a named profile, it must include the wording “I work for Porter Novelli, a global public relations companyâ€?.
Is this fair that most people can be who they want online whereas others are stuck next to the association of their job and company?
Initially I felt that the companies are trying to control their employees a bit too much, and I still do to a certain extent. However, when you look at the following sites that they cite you can see why they are handling matters this way.
It now starts to look like a form of issues management rather than corporate control over employees. Would you agree?
I’ve applied to this agency for a graduate scheme and I’m certainly glad I’ve seen this before I joined. Not that it puts me off working for them but it’s given me a chance to understand why these measures are in place rather than being scared off that the company appears to be too controlling.
If a company that you want to work for had similar measures in place, how would this make you feel? Do you think it’s important to have these issues managed to prevent potential crises as demonstrated in the first example?
Comments
Posted by: Richlw - 4. March 2009, 12:27
This again seems to come back to the argument of managing your personal and professional online life. if i’ve understood correctly though, this company is saying that if you are a member of a socila network then you have to say that you work for them. this strikes me as very strange, although I suppose in PR your social life can be very linked with your professional life, in terms of creating contacts and such so maybe it’s not that much of a surprise that they need to ensure that your online personal life is linked to the company as well.
Posted by: Kemi - 4. March 2009, 15:42
I do think it is important to have these issues managed to prevent potential crises and understand to an extent where companies are coming from. They are obviously scared of the big power and influence they know the internet has so are trying to maintain some level of control…
It seems like there are fine lines between work and personal life. I think its fair enough if you were logged on under a company profile or company twitter account but if you now have to monitor everything you say on your own personal accounts it seems unfair and against ‘freedom of speech’ act, however I do understand why companies are worrying.
Posted by: Hayley T - 5. March 2009, 10:05
Interesting blog Anna. I think as Richlw has mentioned it’s important to differentiate your personal and professional online profiles. For example my LinkedIn profile is completely different to my Facebook profile.
It’s interesting as well because I think the lines are blurred between corporate control and issues management and Kemi makes a good point.
Posted by: Vicki G - 5. March 2009, 15:08
I agree there is a fine line between professional and personal life, especially if you actually believe the products you manage in your company are good. Plus how can it be proved whether your review for a product is from personal experience or professional?
Posted by: svanna - 10. March 2009, 00:42
I’m not sure the point is whether or not its personal or professional experience of that product, but the fact that you are still associated with that company. Even if it was from personal experience, if it was then traced back to you (see the examples) then it would still appear to be a biased opinion.
Posted by: aimee - 21. March 2009, 01:03
I think it is fair enough, and i guess if you do not agree to the guidelines then simply don’t work for the company, or alternatively if you really want to work for the company but you really want to contribute to online media and say exactly what you want, then create a page/profile under a pseudo name – careful not to add any of your colleagues as friends tho……………
Good luck with the application anna :) x
