Allowing employees time for social media during breaks can be a very positive experience for the workplace - and likely to result in positive comments online about the organisation, rather than negative ones.

A recent post by our friends at Mashable has shown in some tests that productivity actually increases where employees use social media/facebook for 10-15 minutes during the day.   They have produced an info-graphic  based on the results of their findings.

Now I am not at all suggesting that just one survey is evidence enough – but let’s look at the smokers in the workplace for example.   Some workplaces only allow smoking in a break, others let workers go outside when they need a cigarette – do we say that people who smoke are less productive?   They may take a couple of extra breaks, but does that make them a problem?  Allowing your employees some time on facebook where they have connected with friends and relaxed is a positive experience.  Provided your employees are meeting or exceeding their deadlines – is there really an issue?

Like any privilege, it can be open to abuse, so it is important to have a social media policy in the workplace which covers not just access by employees privately, but how any interactions on social media concerning the organisation should be framed.   If you do have a social media presence, then it is vital that you have some guidelines on engagement and the style in which posts are made, or responses given.   The way your organisation is perceived online is very much a part of  your customer relationship management as well as your marketing strategy, but the way employees interact becomes part of the HR policy as well.   Developing a social media policy is one way to help to develop a congruent culture where everybody is on the same page.  Allowing employees to feel trusted during breaks contributes to their well-being and this also flows onto how they perceive their workplace and how they are likely to talk about both online or privately.

I think that employers need to relax and try and understand social media just a little bit more.  If they are worried their employees will abuse the use of facebook at work, well there is a  fair chance that workers already are using online facilities to surf the net, pay bills and book holidays and not doing this during their breaks.   Allowing facebook during break times tells your employees that you trust them, you value them and that you trust that they will not abuse the privilege.  Giving a particular time means that they will be more focused when they go online and less likely to get distracted by other news.

There are other benefits of using facebook in the workplace.   It is possible to create a private group just for employees where they can have a laugh, share ideas and generally interact.  Facebook is great for informing employees of events coming up. Clogging up in-boxes with emails (many of which are often social or fun in nature) is old hat – turn things around and start using social media to the workplace advantage.

It is interesting that earlier this week, the US Government lost a case against a worker (US vs Nosal) who was accused of accessing information from a database which he used to start his own business.  The judge decreed that although he was in breach of the companies policy, he did not break Federal  law, under  an Act which exists to preventing hacking.  Further earlier in the year in Maryland, the state passed a bill preventing employers from demanding facebook passwords and logins (thank goodness that is a definite privacy issue).    I only mention these to show that social media is in the news, and that it does appear that society is starting to understand how deeply it is integrated, and that we need to work with it, not against it.

Today’s employee doesn’t just chat to his fellow workers around the water fountain – they engage in a global conversation with a far more vast audience.  It’s time to loosen the collars just a little.

We welcome your comments on this topic.

If you need help framing a social media policy or strategy for your workplace, please contact me.
- Fiona Lucas, Socially Skilled  1300 855 237

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I for one love it. I think its fun and funky and allows you to do plenty of cool things. You can go back and add in when you started a business, your wedding day or the birth of a child etc. You can also highlight photos and make them larger, hide things from certain people, all of which I will show you in a later posting.

One very simple thing that you should all do is create a gorgeous cover which is what I am going to show you today. It is great Facebook real estate that is FREE and is a waste if not used to its potential. Facebook does not allow you to run a business from your personal page but there is absolutely no reason that you can’t mention it or have images to promote it from your personal timeline.

If you are super creative and have the time and the programs you can knock yourself out and create one from scratch. The dimensions are 850 pixels by 320 pixels.

I know from talking to people that they would rather have a fancy pants program to do it for them so I have looked at a few and come up with my favourites.

J4 Timeline Covers is an app accessed directly through Facebook. They have oodles of nice generic covers you can choose from. I wanted to make something unique to me and subtely highlight the businesses I run as well as show my personal side. I chose the collage option, you will need to select 10 photos and upload them into an album of their own into photos on Facebook. The app will lead you through step by step and show you what to do. It is very easy to use. It did however take quite a few tries to get the right photo combination lay out. I wish I could have selected where to put what. In the end I got there and am happy with the result.

The second one I tried was Pic Scatter which was very easy to use. I uploaded about 30 photos to an album and it just automatically placed them for me. I have a sample here which I am not using yet. You need to pay $1.50 to get rid of their branding which I would highly recommend.

If you simply want all your friends from your lists to appear, there is a very simple app called Friendly Cover that does its thing in minutes. I imagine this would be very cool for Gen Y. As I can’t highlight my business’s or random photos this one is not for me.

Here are some really cool, creative covers to give you some ideas of what can be done, the world is your oyster.

As a fan of “the Hunger Games’ this is pure fun for me.

A picture tells a thousand words so go and tell your story.

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(I’m not saying here that there is something wrong with having a website or that you shouldn’t have one…)  The critical part here is: Whatever web presence you choose to have, it’s only doing marketing for you, if it gets found first! Right?

Before social media, business owners would set up their websites, tell their friends, advertise on papers and pay per clicks next to Google’s search results.  Website visitors would search for your page using your keywords and find the most popular results with no problems. And all this worked ok.

That is until the number of websites and online content grew exponentially, ‘spammy’ pages started dominating search results and finding any real content became harder. Search engine optimisation became a field of expertise on its own, but not even great SEO can guarantee that your website is found. Why?

The way I look at it, there are a few requirements that have to be met before your website gets found:

1. Your customers have to realise they need your product or service
2. They have to believe a solution exists
3. They have to look for a solution online
4. They have to key in your keywords in the browsers search box
5. And your page has to rank high enough to appear on the first page for any chance of the link to your website being clicked

Ticking all five boxes can be difficult especially if you are a small business owner just starting out in a brand new niche and no one has heard of you or the products and services you offer. You can be pretty sure that they are not looking for you and all your website can do for you is to ‘sit and wait’ until they hear about you through some other channel.

Well, that was before social media came along!

The beauty of social media is that business owners can abandon the ‘sit and wait’ strategy as their only option and start using some more proactive strategies – similar to attending a networking party:

1. Reaching out and approaching your ideal clients and customers where they hang out
2. Joining discussions, learning more about your customers and getting feedback
3. Choosing who you want to invite to take a look at what you offer (And no, this does not include spamming every possible business page on Facebook with links to your page.)
4. Building relationships and staying in your customers’ mind, so that when they need your services, your page is the one they are likely to visit, because they already know you, like you and trust you.

And it really doesn’t even matter how big or small your business or marketing budget is. Clever ideas, being real and helping others by offering valuable content are the currency on social media. It is a much more equal playing field for all and much more fun!

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I am so super excited to be writing my very first blog post under my new business brand ‘Smart Social Media Solutions’!! So what can you expect? I’ve never been one to beat around the bush and what I love about blogging is it gives me permission to ‘say it like it is’ so that’s exactly how I intend to blog: short, sharp, to the point,  social media marketing tips that will benefit you in business. So I thought it was only fitting that I write my inaugural blog post on ‘How to Adopt a S.M.A.R.T. approach to Social Media!

SPECIFIC: Before even contemplating jumping on board the social media freight train, you must first establish, who you want as passengers (fans and followers) and what route you’re going to take (your strategy)?

Do you want fan and followers who:
*  Are male, female, generation X, Y, Z, Baby Boomers, Empty Nesters?
*  Are local, national or global?
*  Have a high disposable income, budget conscious, bargain hunters?

Is your strategy to:
*  Build brand awareness in the marketplace?
*  Generate leads?
*  Create and build a community of raving fans (brand evangelists)?
*  Market research?
*  All of the above?

The answers to these all-important questions really do form the basis of your social media success.  If you spend the necessary time planning, it will make for a far more enjoyable journey!

MEASURABLE: I learned a very valuable business methodology many years ago “that that you can measure, you can manage”. There is no use in spinning your wheels, only to find you’re not getting any traction from your action!!  There are a number of effective social media tools you can use to measure your social media success and ROI.

Here are a few of the top tools to investigate:
1. Facebook Insights
2. Klout
3. Social Mention
4. Hootsuite
5. Social media metric plugins for Google analytics
6. Tweetreach

ACTION-ORIENTATED: You need to view social media, no different to the telephone, if it rings, you either need to answer the call or get back to the caller ASAP.  You can’t just ‘DO’ social media, like signing off on an ad in the paper, you have to ‘BE’ social. Here’s a staggering statistic ‘95% of all the fan pages in the world have less than 20 fans’. Build it and they will come only happens in the movies. You need to be actively looking for opportunities to contribute quality content and conversation within the social community.

RELEVANT: If you’ve spent the necessary time being strategic with who your target audience is (customer demographics), you’ll find it much easier to post content that is deemed relevant within the community and you’ll also find the community more ‘responsive’ (oh another R word!!) to your content and conversations.  On the other hand, if your fan base demographics are too broad, you‘ll be forever trying to be everything to everyone and it will dilute your results and outcomes.  You don’t want to be a square peg in a round hole!

TIMELY: Once again, when you know who your target audience is, you can time when you should be online.  There is no use posting at 8:30am if your target audiences are Mums and they’re off dropping the kids at school and are not online.  Timing is everything. The same goes for responding to posts, tweets, comments etc.  Your fan base will dwindle very quickly if they’re posting on your fan page and you’re not getting back to them in a timely fashion.

What other smart strategies do you use to succeed in social media? Please share them with us!

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