Month: February 2013

How to avoid a crisis of ownership

Several legal spats have recently drawn attention to arguments between prominent social media users and their former employers in which both argue that they have rights to the followers and contacts gained via said accounts.

On one hand, the accounts of employees are their own, where they connect with friends, family and associates. On the other hand, the personal accounts of many businesspeople today also become marketing engines where company content is regularly promoted, and may interact with customers, clients and vendors more than the official @CompanyName twitter account ever does.

The experts say…

In a recent article, InfoWorld’s Zach Miners spoke with experts on the topic, and offered up some crucial advice:

Determining what makes an account personal versus professional is tricky in an age of near-constant social networking, said Archie of Latham & Watkins.

“People’s professional work often bleeds over into their personal time thanks to the interconnectedness of mobile devices, and that’s only one way ownership disputes can arise,” Archie said.

Facebook and LinkedIn each said via email that their official stance is that users own their accounts. Twitter’s terms of service say its users own all the content they post to its site.

Because the dividing line between personal and professional is so blurry and varies with the job, the best way for employers to avoid legal disputes is to craft clear policies about how employees should use social media, and what happens to an account when an employee leaves the company.

Because social media is still very much growing and evolving, there really is no established set of standards, and that’s why setting these policies is absolutely critical to avoiding trouble.

Preventing problems

As part of your ongoing crisis management efforts, prepare specific policies for all aspects of social media, from ownership and promotional use, to whether they can make personal posts from work, to exactly what topics are OK to discuss online, as well as which are totally off-limits.

This isn’t a “set it and forget it” policy either. The ways we use social media are changing by the day, and we’d suggest taking a regular look back at the rulebook and considering what changes or additions are required.

As with any sort of policy, it’s not going to do any good if it’s just one more sheet in the stack of new hire paperwork. Enforce mandatory training when its introduced, and take the steps necessary to impress its importance on anyone joining the organization.

Legal leanings may change, but if you have clear policy agreements and can prove everyone has been trained accordingly then both employer and employee will know what to expect and, if desired, can change their social media use accordingly.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

No satire in social media crisis management from the kings of fake news

The Onion is well known across the ‘net for lampooning, well, everything. Headlines on its front page right now include, “Republicans Reach Out To Women With New ‘No Punch Pretty Lady’ Bill” and “Bob Dylan Lays Off 2,000 Workers From Songwriting Factory.”

On Oscar night, however, the most famous fake news outlet in the world went too far with the joking. In a tasteless, even by Onion standards, attempt at humor, someone posted to the @TheOnion Twitter feed sarcastically referring to nine-year-old actress Quvenzhane Wallis using a four-letter word that starts with C.

Suddenly, the social media-verse was alight with furious tweets from concerned parents, longtime Onion fans, and just about everyone in between. In other words, it was very, very clear that people weren’t just upset or offended, but completely irate over the tweet.

Within the hour the tweet was deleted, but the virtual downpour continued through the night and Onion staffers must have awoken to inboxes absolutely bursting with rage. On Monday morning, the day after the Oscars, The Onion CEO Steve Hannah engaged in crisis management, publishing the following on Facebook, and later The Onion’s site:

For the CEO of a paper that fills its (virtual) pages with some pretty vicious humor, Hannah issued a solid, human apology. Not only did he announce how his company would avoid making such a mistake again and express his own shock at the joke, but he also profusely apologized and gave his acclaim to the young Ms. Wallis.

The one thing that could have made it a home-run as far as crisis communications go? Well, he acknowledged Wallis and the Academy, but how about a little compassion for all of the other parties who were offended or disappointed?

All in all, surprisingly strong crisis management from an organization that most wouldn’t expect to apologize for anything at all. It looks like they’re taking the mistake as a learning experience, and that’s a good thing. Keep being funny Onion, but watch your step when it comes to bashing little kids.

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For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Crisis Management
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[Jonathan Bernstein is president of Bernstein Crisis Management, Inc., an international crisis management consultancy, author of Manager’s Guide to Crisis Management and Keeping the Wolves at Bay – Media Training. Erik Bernstein is Social Media Manager for the firm, and also editor of its newsletter, Crisis Manager]

Merge strong traditions with new vision…its the way to go… Once a year, at the end of the year I write a blog article that I post both at Marion Conway-Nonprofit Consultant blog and at my other blog – The Grandma Chronicles. This is my favorite post of the year and it is always a popular post. It is a post in which I reflect on the year coming to an end with examples from my personal and professional life and describe my wish for you for the coming year.

This year my wish was for merging strong traditions with new vision. I suggested that we use our imagination to make it happen. Imagination is on my agenda for forging a Happy New Year with joy and courage to face what the world brings us. And this is my wish for you. Read my original post to see my personal examples from 2012.

For the nonprofits I work with, I described 2012 as a year of adapting to the new normal. This has meant adapting programs to new funding realities, new forms of fundraising, getting serious about social media, and new staff finding their sea legs and bringing new perspectives to organizations which – like me – are steeped in tradition. There has been an increased serious interest in strategic planning and desire to discuss vision for the future. It has been a privilege to work with nonprofits as they navigate through these changes. I have been in awe of the leaders of so many organizations I’ve worked with. I have seen difficult situations dealt with and stronger organizations emerge – even if they don’t recognize that yet themselves. It has been inspiring.

As for 2013, I predict it will beckon more change and need to adapt even more so. And I am hopeful that many nonprofits are up to the challenge. Nonprofits are becoming more nimble and finding their own voice. There is less of this “you should run more like a business” and more of “we need to establish priorities and focus on what we do best.” I see a new energy among Boards and readiness to try new approaches. Like me, many Boards have strong ties to traditions but we both must realize that traditions must find new ways to manifest themselves.

All this generality is quite nice, but lets get down to a specific.

Boards – In the last few years there has been a great deal of progress with governance – even for small organizations. Board members are taking this responsibility much more seriously and this is good news. Now what is also happening is that Boards are beginning to wake up to their responsibility for financial management and fundraising. They are connecting the dots…if you approve a budget you also need to ensure that the revenue is there to support that budget. And Behold! That often requires fundraising.

As Boards ask more questions about the budget and finances they are learning more about what are the gems and millstones around the neck of the organization. Do you know an organization that has this situation? : A longstanding program that serves few people, is poorly funded but is lauded as a shining star of the nonprofit – I know more than one. It frequently is run by someone well respected but the program no longer is the best practice way of serving a need. As Board members ask more questions the sacred cows are being overhauled or put on the chopping block. Sometimes a program can benefit from things like a fresh grant, new marketing, new time frame or new approach. I knew an after school program that ran for four days a week leaving those using it as childcare a day short and those involved with multiple after school programs uninterested. Expanding to five days and offering different “clubs” on each day made the program interesting to more people. Redesign and additional funding rejuvenated the program dear to the heart and mission of this nonprofit.

When nonprofits find ways to honor the tradition of their programs and infuse new vision into to them they stay healthy. When they let these problem children linger, they can often be on the path to failure – caused by financial issues and harm to reputation among funders, clients and other supporters. This approach – honoring your traditions and infusing new vision can make a difference in the sustainability of a nonprofit.

Do you have other examples to share? We’d love to hear them – please leave comments.