Jobhop Jobhop's blog : Are You Being Muzzled By Your Employer?

Are you working for an employer who completely ignores the fact that people communicate using social media?

Perhaps you work for an employer who is fully aware of freedom of speech but would rather its own employees never freely spoke to anyone outside the company.

Do you work within a company culture where expressing opinions or thoughts is frowned upon?

Do you feel muzzled by your employer?

If that’s the case then it may be a good idea to try to understand your employer and work out what they’re like this .

They must’ve trusted you to employ you, so why did they say “absolutely no!” when you suggested regular news updates on Twitter, even after explaining how tweets will help the company stay connected to its customers?

Your employer will require some coaching to get to the deep root of his/her fear. They need to be shown how speaking freely in and outside the company, and on social media can be a positive move. Once fear is tackled, training given, guidelines are set and responsibilities are known then autonomy will flow.

Let’s find out why you’re being muzzled by your employer in the first place...

Control Freak

Does your employer behave more like a dictator than a great leader? Are they constantly criticising everyone around them then put it down to giving constructive criticism. Do they come along and completely take over a project and then moan that they’re the only ones that can do things properly? Yes....Sounds like your employer is a control freak. Of course they’re not going to want their employees to speak freely and that’s why they don’t want anyone using social media, they can’t control it!

A control freak employer will want to muzzle their employees, fact. It will do you no good to try and argue with them ( not saying that’s an option) your best tactic is to play on their competitiveness. Many control freak employers are competitive, they beat themselves up for falling behind, for losing a contact, for not retaining talent. Look at competitors who are having successes due to the freedom given to its employees. Their employees are speaking freely about product launches on Twitter, sharing Friday meeting pictures on Instagram and regularly post recruitment videos on Youtube, all of which are driving more business for them. Tactfully bring competitors successes into conversations and when they say at the next Monday meeting “I’ve decided we should all use social media as an everyday tool to stay in touch with our customers” you’ll know who implanted that idea firmly in their head!

Scaredy Cat

Do you have an employer who only talks about the bad stuff they’ve heard about social media?

When approached about the idea of having a Facebook business page, the fear spreads across their face and they’ll come out with a load of excuses not to.

People will say bad things and give the business a bad name
It will only attract competitors who want to spy on product releases
Customers will think they have too much time on their hands
Competitors will think they’re not busy
An employee will make a mistake and it will go viral
They’ll be a court case over some picture

The list goes on!

This is what needs to happen, you need to change their mindset. A portfolio of positive social media stories needs to be compiled, the more local or same industry related stories the better. These positive stories need to be drip fed to your employer.

For example “ Morning Bob” “Just seen that Fudge & Sons got a great PR piece in The Daily Planet because Stephen Fry retweeted their tweet”

Your employer needs to keep hearing positive stories.

When your employer finally comes round to your way of thinking, because they will, they will want to know how they’ll be safe guarded. Be prepared and show them some good social media guidelines, for the super scared a social media policy, and encourage them to have some training.

Long In The Tooth

You’ve got an employer who’s seen and done a lot in their life but they’ve never seen anything as absurd as someone sharing to the world a picture of a donut they’re about to eat, they just don’t get it. They know this happens because their grand daughter is always snapping away and tells them that she’s tweeting it to her 5,000 followers. The question follows” Why is anyone interested that she’s about to eat a jam donut?”

When you explain that it’s just a way to communicate and perhaps its perfectly normal for your employer to bring up in a telephone conversation the great breakfast they had earlier, this is the same for the grand daughter, however technology allows her to communicate differently. They still don’t get it and because they don’t get it they’d rather it isn’t done.

Customer service is usually what wins it here. Your employer, even though older than most thinks social media is just for the strange but they will completely get customer service, they’ve probably built their business up on the values of giving a great customer service.

This is what needs to happen... screen shot every comment about your company online, the good, the bad, the ugly, check all the networking platforms and the review sites.

Now present to your employer what you’ve found, they will be aghast that no-one replied to the lady who tweeted that she couldn’t find the store or the gentleman who put a picture on instagram of his new suit, or the great review on trip advisor. Your employer will then realise that the business is being talked about and the customers need customer service whether they’re on Facebook or at the end of the phone. Don’t expect your employer to ever be involved in Tweeting but just be relieved that they have now given the go ahead for employees to have social media training and get a social media strategy in place!

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Julie Bishop Jobhop.co.uk

Pic credit Marek Bereza

Freedom of speech is the concept of the inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of censorship or punishment. (wikipedia)

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