Are Social Media Web Sites Helping Or HURTING Your Business?

 Seems like all you hear about these days are social media web sites and how businesses are using them to communicate with customers; but what you don’t hear (as often) are some of the downsides of this new and vastly popular media as it pertains to protecting your online reputation, employee productivity and confidentiality.

    In the US alone, the average time spent on social media sites has increased by 700%. If you are using these sites for marketing purposes, it may be GOOD news, especially if these social media junkies are spending some of that time reading your Twitter posts or becoming fans of your Facebook page. However, if your employees are spending hours online chatting with their friends or goofing off, it can mean thousands of dollars in lost productivity. Plus, let’s not overlook the risk of them posting confidential information online or “jokes” or comments that could be offensive to customers.

Here are 3 quick tips that every business owner should have in place:

1. Have a signed social media policy in place for your employees – and enforce it. This should be added on to your acceptable use policy for online usage. Outline what web site they can go to, when and what they can (and cannot post) online.

2. Sign up for “Google Alerts” on your company at www.google.com/alerts. This service will send you an e-mail alert whenever someone posts something regarding a keyword you specify. We recommend setting up alerts for your name and company name at a minimum.

3. Install and use content filtering software for all employee PCs. This will automatically police employees’ online usage and enforce your policies. Of course, if you need help in setting up any of these policies or content filtering software, give us a call!