A new front has opened in the ongoing war between Good and Evil. Yesterday, the web was a buzz with the news that ESPN had released guidelines for social media participation by their employees. Not surprisingly, all of the pro Twitter/Facebook marketing crowd were quite upset by this and went on and on about how it would hurt ESPN. They all quite predictably argued that this was not how social media works, it was big brotherish, socialist, and many other descriptions along the same line.
As this happened late yesterday afternoon, I anticipate more similar comments today from the rest of the pro Twitter / Facebook crowd. One of the arguments commonly used for getting companies to embrace social media is that it allows direct communication with consumers and puts a face/name to the company. Another is the low cost to start as most of the applications are free to use. The marketers who make their living convincing companies to jump on the social media bandwagon have a list of reasons as to why this is the future of marketing. While I don’t necessarily disagree with this, most of their case studies are with smaller companies or individuals. But for a multi-media giant like ESPN, will establishing a corporate policy for social media real effect their business or brand?
The interesting thing is that without either written or video content, there is not much to comment about. As ESPN is a content creator and provider, is it really unreasonable for them to force their employees to follow certain guidelines regarding the distribution or re-distribution of content? There are many other huge companies who have already implemented these same restrictions on their employees but because they are not ESPN, it didn’t get reported.
As social media evolves these are issues that will have to be debated – what right do employees have to Twitter or Facebook using company generated content or information? How do you separate your personal persona from your professional one? How do you protect confidential information from being leaked? Basically, how do you protect your brand?
This is just the start of what should be a really interesting ride as these and new challenges pop up in the clash between social media, marketing, and the corporate world.
To Tweet Or Not To Tweet … ESPNs Answer
A new front has opened in the ongoing war between Good and Evil. Yesterday, the web was a buzz with the news that ESPN had released guidelines for social media participation by their employees. Not surprisingly, all of the pro Twitter/Facebook marketing crowd were quite upset by this and went on and on about how it would hurt ESPN. They all quite predictably argued that this was not how social media works, it was big brotherish, socialist, and many other descriptions along the same line.
As this happened late yesterday afternoon, I anticipate more similar comments today from the rest of the pro Twitter / Facebook crowd. One of the arguments commonly used for getting companies to embrace social media is that it allows direct communication with consumers and puts a face/name to the company. Another is the low cost to start as most of the applications are free to use. The marketers who make their living convincing companies to jump on the social media bandwagon have a list of reasons as to why this is the future of marketing. While I don’t necessarily disagree with this, most of their case studies are with smaller companies or individuals. But for a multi-media giant like ESPN, will establishing a corporate policy for social media real effect their business or brand?
The interesting thing is that without either written or video content, there is not much to comment about. As ESPN is a content creator and provider, is it really unreasonable for them to force their employees to follow certain guidelines regarding the distribution or re-distribution of content? There are many other huge companies who have already implemented these same restrictions on their employees but because they are not ESPN, it didn’t get reported.
As social media evolves these are issues that will have to be debated – what right do employees have to Twitter or Facebook using company generated content or information? How do you separate your personal persona from your professional one? How do you protect confidential information from being leaked? Basically, how do you protect your brand?
This is just the start of what should be a really interesting ride as these and new challenges pop up in the clash between social media, marketing, and the corporate world.