The Stupidity Futility of Banning Social Media

There are many kinds of stupid when it comes to social media in the business world. Among the most common:

1) Ignoring social media in the belief (or hope) that the “fad” will pass

2) Using social media, but without a coherent strategy

3) Having a social media strategy, but not attempting to measure its impact or effectiveness

4) Trying to “ban” social media from the workplace because you think it’s a time and resource drain

Over at SearchEngineWatch.com today, Eric Qualman tackles Stupid No. 4.

Noting a recent USA Today report that a mere 11% of companies “don’t put any limitations on Facebook use in the work force,” Qualman observes that “banning social media at work is”:

* Analogous to banning the Internet.

* Analogous to banning the phone because you might make a personal phone call.

* Analogous to banning paper and pens because you might pass a note that isn’t related to class or work.

* Could potentially signal to workers and future recruits that your company just doesn’t “get it.”

In support of these arguments, Qualman makes a number of excellent points. Here’s one:

[H]ow can companies learn what to do in social media if they aren’t allowing their employees to even use the tools?

And here’s another, which, really, is the grown-up, adult, let’s-get-real point:

An employee either produces desired results or doesn’t. If one employee reads Wikipedia during their break time but produces 40 sales per week and another employee reads books outside during their break but only produces 15 sales per week, which employee would you keep? If you’re in the business of making money, you’d keep the one producing 40 sales per week.

In other words, the bottom line is the bottom line. And if companies allow themselves to get distracted from the real bottom line because some control-freak executive is looking at the wrong side of the equation and fretting that employees are wasting time posting to Twitter or Facebook, I’d say the real problem in that company is the executive, and not social media.

Join Baratunde Thurston (left), The Onion’s Director of Digital and author of How to Be Black, for an entertaining look at creative social media campaigns in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. Other speakers include Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Tim Devane (bitly), and SocialTimes' writer Devon Glenn.   Register now.