C Shaffstall

The big debate rages: does social networking help or hinder your business? I think it depends on your business. Social networking can easily be the key to a successful online-marketing campaign, so having staff with particular skills in online socializing can be very beneficial. The downside may lay in how your staff is developing these skills.

According to WEBWIRE, Australian businesses are cracking down on their employees accessing social networking sites. New figures released by Telstra Business and managed internet-security specialists MessageLabs, now part of Symanetc, show a 400% increase in employer-blocked access to social networking sites over the better part of the past year.

In another report, BBC stated that according to employment law firm Peninsula, 233 million hours are lost every month as a result of employees wasting time on social networking. The study — based on a survey of 3,500 UK companies — concluded that businesses need to take firm action on the use of social networks at work.

Well, that’s one approach.

At the University of Melbourne, Dr Brent Coker, from the department of management and marketing, says that workers who engage in workplace internet leisure browsing, or WILB, are more productive than those who don’t. “People who do surf the internet for fun at work — within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office — are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t,” he says.

Let’s do the math: you let your employees spend 20% of their day (about 1.6 hours) surfing the net for personal enjoyment and you will gain 9% productivity. Assuming that you are gaining 9% on the balance, as the employer you’re still on the short end of that equation — unless you count the benefit to be gained by putting that surfing to work for you.

Let’s assume that your strategic marketing plan includes lots of social media promotion through Facebook®, LinkedIn®, Plaxo®, or MySpace®, to just a few of the more than 120 social networks currently online (there are six to ten new networks brought online each week). With all this bandwidth — that’s free — I’d have to question any campaign these days that does not take advantage of these venues. Here’s where all that surfing skill comes in handy.

Don’t be reluctant to engage your non-marketing staff in your marketing campaign. Everyone can pitch in. You’ll likely be surprised to find the talent pool within your walls.

The important consideration here is that everyone is on the same page. Ensure that all of your contributors have a marketing plan with approved messages from which to work. It’s not enough to turn them loose on the internet highway, you need to put up a road sign or two, and monitor, monitor, monitor.

We have a saying at my company: you’re not above taking out the trash — or helping with marketing.