Social media: good or bad for business?

Canadian executives and business owners are divided when it comes to using social media to boost business, says a new poll of Canadian business leaders by Queen’s School of Business. While many value its potential benefits, they’re still concerned about its risks.

Four in ten bosses (39%) say social media is essential to growing their business but they’re unsure of taking the leap, over a third (35%) use it often, and about a quarter (24%) say it doesn’t add value.

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Despite this division, however, the majority of execs (72%) are planning to invest in social media in the coming year. They want to increase brand awareness, recruit talent, gain a deeper understanding of their customers, and network.

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Neil Bearse, who leads seminars on social media for Queen’s School of Business, says companies using media properly are edging out their competition. Not only are they getting their names out there, they’re building meaningful connections.

He warns, “Too many organizations are using social media to amass shallow acquaintances, when the goal should be to develop fewer, more meaningful friendships.”

This requires companies to be involved in developing and maintaining appealing brand pages and identities – and to connect with consumers directly.

While ensuring corporate security has been a major issue in the press, Canadian execs are more concerned with what their employees might be doing at home.

They’re worried about what employees may be posting on personal profiles, and about how outside activities might affect the company’s reputation. The vast majority of managers (91%) agree employees should always consider their comments could be connected to their workplaces, whether it’s listed on personal profiles or not.

“What happens on Twitter doesn’t stay on Twitter,” says Kate Rowbotham, professor of human resource management at Queen’s School of Business.

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She adds, “People may feel that their participation in social media is personal, but we have seen a number of examples of overexposure on social channels by individuals that has had a negative impact on the overall organization they work for.”

And it seems employee personal privacy isn’t a concern, with two in ten bosses (22%) wanting to monitor social media use outside of work hours.

Over two thirds (68%) report their organization has policies on the use of social media at work, with two in ten (18%) forbidding it altogether social media usage at work.

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Thoughts from the corner office:

• Only a tiny minority of execs cited retaining top talent (4%) or communicating with employees (3%) as the top benefit of using social channels.
• Eight in ten (82%) are personally using social media, but LinkedIn is the clear front-runner.
• When considering a new employee, one-third of execs view social media experience as important. It’s as crucial as speaking a second language or having international work experience.
• Social media is making it harder for older employees to compete in the workforce; over half of execs strongly agree (51%) and almost a third agree (28%).