My thanks to Karen Thompson, Perth for sharing an article on Linked In from http://www.hrdaily.com.au on the Australian telecoms giant Telstra’s policy and approach to Social Media.

“Telstra’s policy requires employees engaging in work-related use of social media to:

It applies to each of Telstra’s subsidiaries and their employees and contractors.”

Telstra recognise that their employees are trusted and best advocates for spreading the word. They have a training course so that the tool of communication used is correct be it Flickr, YouTube, Blog, Whirlpool, Twitter etc. They have a disciplinary procedure to back up fouls. And they’ve even come up with disclaimers “this is my personal opinion not Telstra’s“. Employees are allowed to use their work email addresses too – helping brand and own the converstation.

Telstra is not alone. In the UK Carphone Warehouse have also taken a liberal approach and Guy Stephens, a ‘customer services representative’ tweets for them. His handle is: @guy1067. Guy’s approach is logical. He searches for the company name and products and responds to comment, offering clarity or information as relevant. As required he then steers the communication to the most appropriate channel – pick up the phone, email, got to the shop to get it fixed etc. He converts the commentator to become a fan or at least have a positive brand experience..

Companies that have nothing to hide, are proud of their products and services, and look after their staff can’t seriously have a reason to stop employees participating in free but controlled manner on line. All employees sign employment contracts that ensure confidentiality is maintained where appropriate and this should keep them in check.

There is a similarity between blogging and tweeting, especially the caution from early phases of use. Once again, you don’t have to be actively dreaming up and writing, pushing out posts/tweets, but it is a missed opportunity to not be actively responding to comments about your company, brand, product and services. Two years ago hardly any companies in the FTSE 100 had a blog. Corporate Communications were worried about letting any employee blog in case they went off brand (rather like Biden this morning saying he didn’t want his family on the metro let alone a plane with swine flu germs potentially flying around. His department issued a statement latter saying of course it was ok to use public transport, just wash your hands regularly and sneeze/cough into your elbow). Many still don’t have a blog, but just ‘listen’ to the communication channels.

Twitter is now a mainstream communication channel that all marketers need add to their media list and address how to interact with it.

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