Last week DigitalMediaWire published an article stating that the majority of U.S. companies ban social media sites at work. The stats break down thusly:

  • 54% of business block employee access to social networking sites
  • 19% allow social networking for work-related purposes
  • 16% allow limited personal use
  • 10% allow full use

Ironically, according to a study cited in the article, “94% of companies are continuing to invest in online communities and social media.” Over half of U.S. businesses block social media sites at work, yet 94% of businesses are acknowledging the importance of social media and are starting to invest in it? It’s kind of like being a retail business that doesn’t let its employees buy anything.

I’m likely biased because I get paid to tinker around on social media and networking sites, but I do think that businesses should allow responsible and periodical usage of social media at work for the following reasons:

  1. It helps morale. Everyone needs a mental break from work, and browsing Facebook or sending out a few tweets is no different than surfing the web, reading your email or checking voice messages in terms of time consumed. If you ban social sites, your employees are still going to figure out a way to procrastinate a little bit using the Internet or by taking 20 coffee breaks. Let your employees have a little freedom to stretch their legs and enjoy a little personal time at work — it’ll likely make them happier and more willing to tackle their tasks.
  2. It builds knowledge of social media. What better way to build up awareness of the value of social media marketing by encouraging hands-on experience? If you ban social media usage at work but appoint some random person in marketing to handle the company’s social media efforts, you could be missing out on the knowledge that other employees can bring to the table. Maybe there’s someone at the office who is really passionate about social networking and knows enough about the subject to bring value to the company. You shouldn’t stifle these people; rather, you should encourage their usage of various sites and networks and maybe even ask for updates on what they’ve learned about existing sites, new sites, etc.
  3. It can help solve work problems/answer questions by reaching out to large networks. If there’s a work-related question that needs to be answered, it can potentially be resolved by reaching out via a social network like Twitter or LinkedIn. Whenever I’m stumped on an SEO question, I’ve sometimes tweeted the problem and gotten a great slew of helpful answers from my community of followers. Social networks can oftentimes be a great problem-solving tool.
  4. It can be great marketing for the company. Businesses would probably love for their happy employees to share how great it is to work at Company X — it’s great branding for them and can serve as positive reputation management. I tweet all the time about how I love working for 10e20 and how I have the best coworkers in the world — that’s great for our company and great for business.

Obviously, there are some downsides to letting employees have full reign of social media usage at work. I’ve seen people update their Facebook status complaining about a work task or saying negative things about customers/clients. This sort of behavior is clearly unprofessional and doesn’t reflect well on either the employee or the business. However, I think that a little bit of training and awareness can stifle these sorts of incidents. Clearly state your social media usage policy to new employees and say that while you encourage responsible and occasional usage of social media and networking, be courteous, professional and mindful of the company who’s employing them. Most employees have enough common sense to know what’s acceptable and what’s inappropriate, and the occasional mild slipup should be met with a friendly reminder and meeting about company policy.

However, if you’ve got an employee who constantly complains about work, bitches about coworkers or makes inappropriate comments that can reflect poorly on the company, you should consider whether you want that person on staff instead of wondering if you should block his/her usage at work (after all, it’s easy to fire up the computer at home and make the same disparaging comments).

I think that many businesses can thrive if they educate their employees on proper social media usage and encourage them to network responsibly. I’ll leave you with an interesting Attack of the Show video clip that discusses this topic — it pretty much sums up my sentiments.

Attack of the Show

What do you think? Is it a black and white issue to block social media at work, or are there more variables that should be considered? Post your comments below or tweet your response to @10e20. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS feed!