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Companies, Employees, and Social Media requires Trust

Categories: Ethics, Social MediaPosted on October 2nd, 2007

I’ve worked for a few companies now in my career, and each culture exemplifies it’s trust for it’s employees in different ways. For many companies, there’s a long list of do’s and don’t that are issued to them while they’re being hired. The more “donts” the less trust the company and employee may have.

In this new world, where Social Media is going to be part of many of our communication fabrics, we need to establish trust, as the lines are never going to be fully black and white. Those who embrace these tools will often be ‘pushing the membrane’ of the corporate culture and as a result, be in the gray zone. Keep in mind, those who push are often wanting to help customers, or move the company in the right direction.

As a result, trust has become more and more important, and we need to consider the following (as it’s not going away)

1) Companies: Hire the right employees that have integrity, sound business judgment, and know how to communicate both internaly and externally
2) Companies: Trust in these employees to be your ambassadors to the world, give them the benefit of the doubt, and let them self-correct amongst themselves. I also advise instituting internal communication tools to help them, and setting down basic guidelines…often created BY the employees.
3) Employees: Those out in the social sphere should act their best, demonstrate your ability, and try not to embarrass the company. If you do make a mistake, quickly apologize, correct the mistake. Always act in an ethical manner.
4) Social Sphere: That’s everyone else in the world, is to simply recognize the challenges as companies move forward in this new world.

I’m sure there’s an argument suggesting that the mail clerk shouldn’t blog about the company’s product set, which is likely appropriate, but keep in mind, he’s connected to his network on MySpace or Facebook, and represents the company in a different way –even if he attempts to separate himself from the company.

What prompted this post? yesterday, the message I heard from my new employer at orientation was “We trust you, as we hire good people”. Message heard loud and clear.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 3:24 am and is filed under Ethics, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

15 Responses to “Companies, Employees, and Social Media requires Trust”

  1. Good post - you’re right… it’s not going away.

    An observation: Employees demonstrating their ability in the social sphere will result in the building of reputation (theirs or their employers). Reputation is the other side of the coin and should be considered in tandem with trust in order for social media and other trust-based systems to work well.

    Reputation is probably more measurable than trust, and therefore can be a good indication of trust.

    How is trust/reputation expressed within organisations? Mostly in opaque (i.e. not transparent) and inefficient forms, such as gossip, grapevines and so on.

    Social media within the enterprise, such as internal blogs and wikis can help to short-circuit these inefficiencies and establish trust and reputation quickly, but they need fostering, just as those embracing these tools will need fostering.



    2. Posted by Amar Patel on October 2nd, 2007 at 5:36 am

  2. That’s a good point Amar, I didn’t even cover the ‘results’ of these tools for companies and employees.

    What else are benefits (and costs) from these tools?



    3. Posted by jeremiah_owyang on October 2nd, 2007 at 6:29 am

  3. [...] it. While I promise Crystal is preparing a blog post on that and other topics for us to devour, Jeremiah Owyang’s post today offered some advice on trust and the employer/employee relationship. I think it points out a simple, yet effective approach to [...]



    4. Posted by Social Media Explorer : Social Media Policy: Corporate, Personal Responsibility on October 2nd, 2007 at 6:46 am

  4. [...] it. While I promise Crystal is preparing a blog post on that and other topics for us to devour, Jeremiah Owyang’s post today offered some advice on trust and the employer/employee relationship. I think it points out a simple, yet effective approach to [...]



    5. Posted by Social Media Explorer : Social Media Policy: Corporate, Personal Responsibility on October 2nd, 2007 at 6:46 am

  5. Radical trust needs to be inherent and in both directions. Staff need to inherently trust their leadership too.



    6. Posted by Connie Bensen on October 2nd, 2007 at 7:09 am

  6. Benefits could include democratising the enterprise by empowering everyone with a voice, and giving the enterprise a chance to listen and modify its behaviour, if deemed appropriate. This idea links to Connie’s comment I think. Like I said, it needs fostering.

    Physical costs aside (not that they’re huge), and depending on your point of view, I think the biggest cost is the need to start thinking differently and the change accompanied with new thought patterns. I see this as a good thing as it indicates learning.



    7. Posted by Amar Patel on October 3rd, 2007 at 6:23 am

  7. [...] I included Companies, Employees, and Social Media requires Trust because I think that trust in your job is very important and it’s something I feel I have here at [...]



    8. Posted by Strive Notes » Jo’s PR top five on October 4th, 2007 at 3:24 am

  8. Everything requires trust, break it and you break the company, been that way since the dawn of civilization.



    9. Posted by Christopher Coulter on October 5th, 2007 at 8:24 pm

  9. [...] Companies, Employees, and Social Media requires Trust [...]



    10. Posted by December Carnival Of Trust | Business Opportunities And Ideas on December 3rd, 2007 at 1:11 pm

  10. Jeremiah,

    Congratulations on getting picked up by the Carnival of Trust. I like what you have to say on the topic; needless to say, I agree with the points you make about the general importance of trust, and glad to see someone making the points in the context of employees.

    Charles H. Green
    http://www.trustedadvisor.com



    11. Posted by Charles H. Green on December 4th, 2007 at 7:12 am

  11. [...] hunch is that two factors are critical in answering this question: trust (check out this post from Jeremiah Owyang, one of my favorite bloggers) and making sure employees feel they have permission—maybe [...]



    12. Posted by The Tendo Blog on June 13th, 2008 at 4:53 pm

  12. [...] hunch is that two factors are critical in answering this question: trust (check out this post from Jeremiah Owyang, one of my favorite bloggers) and making sure employees feel they have permission—maybe [...]



    13. Posted by Tendo News » Blog Archive » How does your leadership style affect your company’s blog? on July 24th, 2008 at 3:24 pm

  13. [...] Anyone who has grappled with this one will appreciate these words of encouragement: [...]



    14. Posted by It’s a matter of showing trust « Trends in Communication on September 23rd, 2008 at 3:48 am

  14. [...] Companies, Employees, and Social Media requires Trust [...]



    15. Posted by socs - Service Oriented Content Sourcing « kbex on December 17th, 2008 at 12:44 am

  15. [...] I just read Jeremiah’s post from 2007 on the topic of trust. For one thing, it made me realize how un-new the things I’m [...]



    16. Posted by Gaining Trust « Marketing Treads on February 5th, 2009 at 3:01 pm

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