When must-use meets must-block

 

Chris Dawson has a post up at ZDNet Education discussing how to reconcile the cultural prominence of social networking sites (and clearly compelling business use-cases thereof) with the standing practice of blocking access to these sites in many workplaces and schools:

...if Facebook is truly becoming a “must-use” application, where does that leave our students, teachers, and staff who sit behind content filters where Facebook is blocked? There aren’t many of us who allow the social network past our filters, but are we cutting off legitimate communication?

Obviously we’re cutting off plenty of plain old socializing that has no place in schools. We’re cutting off the potential for cyber-bullying, cheating, and plenty of other illegitimate uses. However, if this is the medium of choice for parents and the vast majority of people who use computers in our schools, are we doing a disservice by blocking it?

I don’t think so, since most of us allow access to email and even custom internal social networks. However, every time I see new evidence that social media in general (and Facebook in particular) is becoming the dominant means of communication in our culture, I can’t help but wonder if our content filtering needs to be a bit more enlightened.

My guess is "yes." But it might take a couple of years. When I was in high school (and we're talking not quite a decade ago), schools were still attempting to block access to most of the Internet, including news sites, blogs and email. Cell phones were prohibited (PROHIBITED, in capitals!) inside school buildings. The thought that any of these things could contribute meaningfully to education - or to life at school - was met with serious skepticism, and the suggestion that a high school should have its own email system or online publishing platform was viewed as a bit unrealistically forward-thinking. I predict that a decade from now, discussions about blocking access to Facebook in schools and workplaces will seem similarly misguided.

Dawson does have a point: giving students access to Facebook in school provides opportunities for bullying, cheating, and possibly distracting non-academic discussions. But, unless I'm missing something, aren't these activities already happening in schools, and already accounted for in existing codes of conduct? Do school officials think that the only thing currently keeping students in line is their lack of access to Facebook?

Technology happens, the world changes, and organizations need to be ready to adapt their policies and enforcement methods accordingly. It will happen. It's just a matter of how much time you want to spend fighting it.

Do you 'do' social media?

This post was originally published on PR Nonsense, for March Communications.

On everyone’s mind this week – the results of Jennifer Leggio’s research report: Is ’social PR’ for real? Which agencies get it?

Leggio surveyed over 600 PR decision-makers in various industries about what they consider important when it comes to ‘doing social media’ and how well they think their agencies are approaching these tactics. Some of the results were obvious: 79% of respondents think it is ‘extremely important’ for their agencies to understand social media strategy, and only 37% think they have a ‘great’ understanding of how to use social media for business themselves. Clearly this is an area where clients see the necessity and need the expertise.

More surprising and somewhat depressing? Not quite half of the respondents agreed that their current agency ‘understands how PR needs to fuel entire business strategy, not just news coverage.’ And as far as social media goes, only 20% reported that their agency recommended social media programs beyond tools to support business endeavors. Says Leggio:

This is scary. No social media decision should be led with tool selection. Companies need to first consider their corporate objectives, then determine where their customers, partners and competitors are, and also consider how such use of tools ties to the corporate culture. Agencies, this relates back to the importance of team members understanding the fundamentals of a client’s business.

With this in mind, “does your agency ‘do’ social media?” is the wrong question.

Do we ‘do’ social media? The short answer is “Yes.” The long answer is this:

All media is social. To boot, print and broadcast publications are relying increasingly on online and user-generated content, or transitioning to an online-only format. Online influencers (both collectively and as individuals) have gained unprecedented authority in the traditional media.

No company in the technology sector should entertain a PR proposal that lacks thorough consideration of how social media fits into the program – including an explanation of how social media monitoring and participation will be integrated with the rest of the media relations, marketing and lead generation strategy.

So March doesn't list “social media relations” on our list of services. Instead, we incorporate social media principles and tools into our client’s campaigns, at both a strategic and tactical level. That way, social media becomes part of what we do for every client, on every campaign.

As long as new social media tools and tactics are being developed, we will continue to find ways to use them to strengthen all of our PR and marketing activities.