If your organization is debating the need for a social media policy, you might want to watch this 90-second news story from a Knoxville-area school district.

The news coverage is about a thread on the TV station’s Facebook page and a published comment regarding the suspension of a high school student. It’s a short case study, but one that brings to light key privacy issues and the implications when everybody becomes a publisher.

Facebook has become a way of life for many people who have become de-sensitized about what what they’re sharing.  If you are representing a company or other institution in a public forum, what you are writing may be permanent, search-able, published material with legal consequences.

To be fair to both employees and employers, every organization should have a social media policy — even if there is no formal company social media initiative, as illustrated by this story!

A few weeks ago Mitch Joel, blogger and founder of Twist Image, aggressively disagreed with me on my blog post Why it’s Ridiculous to Argue About Ghost Blogging.

He was so pumped up about this topic that he challenged me to a duel. So I practiced my very best Mitch Joel “blue steel” sexy-glare (above) and accepted.

Mitch just posted our rambunctious discussion on his Six Pixels of Separation podcast. This turned out to be an absolutely fascinating debate and a lot of fun. Check it out to see what happens when we lock horns on the subject of ghost blogging and social media philosophy in general.

Mitch says ghost blogging is fundamentally wrong and that this is force-fitting old thinking into a new media. My perspective is, get over it — it’s already happening and it’s an important way to give voice to an executive’s passion and ideas.

We also delve into subjects like:  Is social media changing corporate culture or does corporate culture determine social strategy?

Come along for a wild ride by listening here.

And if you don’t follow Mitch’s excellent blog, you’re really missing out. He’s a solid business consultant and an important voice on the social web.

When does online parody cross a line?

By now you’ve probably become aware of the “fake” BP global public relations account on Twitter spewing humorous observations such as:

“We feel terrible about spilling oil in American waters, we’ll make sure the next spill happens where the terrorists live. #bpcares”

“Just wrapped up a meeting with the EPA. Terry kept farting out loud at all the right moments. Not sure how he does it, but it’s SO FUNNY!”

“Oh man, this whole time we’ve been trying to stop SEAWATER from gushing into our OIL. Stupid Terry was holding the diagram upside down.”

According to Ad Age, the account started last Wednesday afternoon with this tweet: “We regretfully admit that something has happened off of the Gulf Coast. More to Come.”

Fewer than 50 tweets later, the feed had nearly 13,000 followers — compared to the 5,000 or so at the “real” @BP_America — and as of today, the account had about 40,000 followers.  Its humorous blasts have been re-tweeted by everyone from filmmaker Michael Moore to singer Michelle Branch.

Toby Odone, a spokesman at BP, told Ad Age: “I’m not aware of whether BP has made any calls to have it taken down or addressed. People are entitled to their views on what we’re doing and we have to live with those. We are doing the best we can to deal with the current situation and to try to stop the oil from flowing and to then clean it up.”

While there have been plenty of fake Twitter accounts before, perhaps none has spread so rapidly or gained this kind of momentum. The timing is right, the content is superb, and people are eager to connect emotionally to anyone poking fun at the easy target.

Let’s take a look at some of the realities and implications of this development for our own businesses.

1) Is it legal?

According to Twitter’s guidelines, it is perfectly acceptable to set up accounts that parody real companies, celebrities, etc. as long as it is clear that it is a parody. Their rule states:

The bio should include a statement to distinguish it from the real identity, such as “This is a parody,” “This is a fan page,” “Parody Account,” “Fan Account” or “This is not affiliated with…”

The account should not, through private or public communication with other users, try to deceive or mislead others about your identity. For example, if operating a fan account, do not direct message other users implying you are the actual subject (i.e., person, band, sports team, etc.) of the fan account.

As of today, the fake account bio reads: “This page exists to get BP’s message and mission statement out into the twitterverse!”

So no, it is not an account that meets Twitter’s standards. Further, it is causing a lot of confusion because many people are actually taking this as a serious BP account.

2) What should BP do?

BP has much bigger PR problems than a rogue Twitter account.  And making an issue of it and spoiling the fun would probably just heighten negativity against the company.

However, if I were working for BP right now <shudder> I would at least approach Twitter and ask it to enforce its own rules and declare clearly that this is a parody site.  Given the number of people who actually think this is a real account, there is a high probability that quotes from this parody site could start showing up as legitimate quotes from the company and stress the PR department further.

Really, BP’s only real option is to withstand the public fury and and eliminate the core problem — the root cause — at the source deep in the ocean and spreading across our shores. And that is going to take years.

3) What should YOU do?

The social web has imparted a whole new sense of meaning and urgency to PR planning, monitoring and response.  How have the rules changed? Or have they? What are your thoughts?

Translation: "Reading this blog makes us don native costumes and dance with exuberance"

Do you have an “in-the-moment marketing strategy?”

If you don’t, you could be missing one of the biggest opportunities of the social web!

I had lunch recently with a marketing manager for a major TV cable network and we talked about the evolution of social media marketing at his company. He had a couple of quotes that illustrate the importance of reactive, or in-the-moment marketing …

“When I started working in social media marketing, it was basically just me.  Now everybody wants a piece and there is a battle over ownership. I feel like I have three bosses right now.”

“I gather data on our social media activities and the executives want it in a nice shiny report they use to plan programming for the next season.”

“The lawyers are getting nervous about so many people participating. They are working on regulations on who can be on the web and exactly what they can say.”

“We have a huge Facebook following for the network and I’d like to create individual efforts for different programs but just don’t have the resources to address it.”

I’m sure some of these growing pains sound familiar, but there is also a common theme here and a potential storm cloud for my friend that may not be obvious to him.

One of the hallmark characteristics of marketing on the social web is the reactive, opportunistic nature of engagement.

Traditional media: Take out an ad and hope customers buy stuff.

New media: Watch real-time customer, prospect and competitor behavior and react as it is happening. This requires people to be tuned in and provided with the authority to take action as they see an opportunity. For example:

• Authorize employees to solve a customer Twitter complaint on the spot
• Watch for complaints about competitors and act aggressively and immediately to fill the gap
• Listen for un-met and under-served customer needs and adapt accordingly

So let’s get back to that storm cloud at the cable TV network.   Sure, there are the inevitable politics at work — and they’ll sort out — but this marketing organization doesn’t realize that they’re sub-optimizing their reactive marketing system:

• Fight over “ownership” of social media marketing will muddy accountability and authority.
• A big shiny report will only end up sitting on a shelf someplace, and even if management actually reads it, the market could have shifted dramatically by then. Why not monitor progress and reaction episode by episode?
• A social media policy is necessary but burdensome legal approvals could crush in-the-moment innovation.  Allow for some mistakes.
• One way to have more resources for individual celebrities and programs is to deputize more people and get them involved to interact on their own without the marketing department’s intervention.

Is your organization still in traditional command-and-control mode or are they adopting to the new opportunities of the real-time social web?

An article in the Harvard Business Review caught my eye.  It provided some evidence that allowing at least some social media employee freedom is good for the workplace

We all know by now that most organizations limit or frown upon the use of social media in the workplace. Leaders have nightmarish visions of their employees wasting hours on Facebook and Twitter. But this article states that reasonable employee use of social media has actually been shown to benefit companies. Here are three reasons to let your employees get connected:

1. More attractive workplace. Many people, especially younger generations, see social media as a staple of work life and seek out employers who understand and acknowledge the critical role these new technologies play in our world.
2. Improved productivity. Research has shown that employees who take breaks to surf the Internet for fun are ultimately more productive than their surf-adverse colleagues.
3. More engaged workforce.  Employees not only appreciate companies that allow them to check Facebook at work, but they also use social media to connect with colleagues, improve communication, and speed up decision making processes — all of which helps them engage with their work and the organization.

 Obviously this is a two-edged sword.  This topic came up during the Q&A session after a speech I gave last week and a riot almost broke out. Many employers have EXTREMELY strong, negative views on this issue. 

This battle is going to become even more heated with the ubiquity of mobile applications.

What’s going on in your workplace?  What are your views?

Part 5 of a series

Writing a series of posts on Twitter scams has been pretty depressing.

I found there is a thriving subculture of deceivers that is bizarre and disturbing. The scammers exploit the elderly, the vulnerable, the under-educated, and the desperate.  This is typical: A Twitter page of a friendly looking man who is a “Husband, Dad, Blogger and Entrepreneur” peddling this product: From Food Stamps To 7 Figures Online Free Video.

The scam sub-culture blogs about dodging regulations and adjusting tactics to capitalize on loopholes.  “Best practices” spread at the speed of light and the pyramid schemes can vanish behind the social web’s cloak of anonymity, free access and fake accounts. The scum has become more powerful through the recession, persistent unemployment and evolving technology that feeds their need to deceive.

The mere fact that I wrote articles containing the words “MLM” attracted automated spammers that nearly snowed me under with deceitful tweets.   I am sickened by the vast resources devoted to tricking us into clicking.

What can be done about it?

On a macro-level, very little.   Most regulations or policies could also hurt legitimate enterprises.  We have to take the fight to the streets.

Here are some ideas to help you fight back and at least take control in your part of the blogosphere.

Use Twitter “report for spam” option.  Any time I am spammed by porn-peddling, teeth-whitening, Trump Network sludge, I hit the report for spam button. Twitter seems to be processing at least some of these requests manually to avoid mob-rule against legitimate but unpopular tweeters, so I don’t really know what it takes to get people kicked out.  Just do your part. If enough people take the time to do it, it is in Twitter’s best interest to figure out a way to handle it.

There’s an app for that? — There is a new app called Stop Tweet that may provide hope to the idea of automatically blocking some spammers.  This utility allows you to tweak your personal settings to block and report people based on two tell-tale characteristics – no or low number of tweets and a high following-to-follower ratio.  It can also show you who among your followers who is a known spammer.  I tried this app out and unfortunately it did block several legitimate small businesses just starting Twitter accounts.  Play around with the settings and let me know what you think.

Separate email addresses — I have one email address I try to keep “pure” for correspondence with real people and another one I use for ANY app, service, or website. I even use my “spam” address when posting comments. Face it, it is only a matter of time before a database is hacked and all your identification and passwords violated. Minimize this inevitable risk by containing it to one account.

Mind the basics — You know the routine. Use strong passwords that are long, a mixture of letters and numbers, and nonsense words unrelated to any personal information. I just did research for a client project that showed the number one password for elderly people is “password.”  Help educate your loved ones, too.

Ignore them — Don’t be tempted to do what I did and explore the spam underworld. Don’t visit their sites or ask for more information, even in fun. If you respond to their spam, you’re encouraging them to continue, and they only need a tiny response to be profitable. Take my advice based on experience — ignore them completely!

What are YOUR strategies for dealing with the spam tsunamai?  What could Twitter do to step-up to the problem?

Part 1 in the series on Twitter’s Biggest Scams: Multi-level marketing

Part 2:  The teeth whiteners

Part 3: The Twitter follower scam

Part 4: The Trump Network

Zappos* is a successful company with a well-publicized, aggressive employee use of social media.  In fact, it may be the most famous social media model in all of blogdom. They have 13 blogs, 50,000 videos and their employees tweet like rabbits in heat.  It’s worked for them and it’s a wonderful case study. I get it.  But it’s probably the wrong model for most companies.   

And here’s the point where the waves of Zappo-sniffing social media purists come crashing down on me.  So be it.  This is dangerous stuff. 

It is relatively safe to blog and tweet about shoes.  But in many companies, the risk of an all-employee social media free love policy will far outweigh the benefits.  For many important companies all it will take is one Twitter-induced SEC violation, a leak of vital competitive information, or a national defense breach, and the hammer will come down on the use of social media forever. Policies are usually made to deal with the lowest common denominator.

Is this a leadership issue? Not necessarily. There are irresponsible people everywhere.  There are disgruntled employees even in the best-managed companies.   Where corruption can occur it will occur. Welcome to the human race.

So what’s the answer?

Under the following conditions, the Zappos model might be ideal:

• Company culture supports employee engagement
• Company leadership understands the model
• Customer base is active on the social web in a meaningful way
• Benefits outweigh risk of security breach

If just one of these conditions are not met, the free love policy cannot work. 

That’s not to say that social media won’t work in some form with almost any company if there is appropriate training, role clarity, effective policy and boundaries. But you have to fit the tactics to the strategy — and the culture — just like any initiative. 

A marketing leader has to make effective decisions based on what IS, not on what you WISH for. You can’t “will” a social media effort to work in your company just because it worked in the Zappos corporate culture.

For an excellent and thorough perspective on the need for effective and appropriate corporate social media policies, I recommend Kent Huffman’s recent post on the subject.

OK, your turn. Let ‘er rip!

*If you are unfamiliar with the Zappos social media model, Jeff Bullas has written wonderful case studies on this company:

• How Does Social Media Help Deliver On Zappos’s 10 Core Company Values

• Why Would Your Company Need 13 Blogs?

• Revelations On How An Online Retailer Went From Zero to $1.2 Billion

• 6 Ways Zappos Uses Twitter To Increase Sales

The social web may be the most revolutionary marketing tool since the advent of radio.  I don’t have to tell you why at this point.  But for all the opportunities, there can also be danger, if the technology is mis-applied or misunderstood. Here are some ways social media can destroy customer relationships:

1)      Hit and run communication.  Many people, especially under-20s who have been conditioned to handle conflict over text messages, mis-use the technology. If 80 percent of communication is non-verbal, how much is lost when customers provide customer service issues over a tweet?  We are more likely to be unprofessional, harsh and inappropriate in writing than in a live conversation and unfortunately, more and more important customer interactions are taking place over short-form messages.

2)      False sense of expectations.  I’ve observed that some companies are urgently getting into the social media scene and then being unprepared for the response.  It’s so easy to connect with customers today, but you better be prepared to connect with them in a meaningful and appropriate way or you will disappoint them and then lose them.

3)      Over-dependence on social media. Pick up a phone. Make a personal visit. Write a thank-you note. Don’t get too hooked on communicating through only social media, especially if it’s not your customer’s preferred way to communicate.   Going old school can actually help you stand out.

4)      Wrong person in charge.  Some companies pick a person to run their social media efforts just because they have a nice Facebook page. Wrong.  Like your website or your sales and customer service efforts, this is your front line of defense. I would much rather have an experienced customer service person learn social media than a social media person learn customer service.

5)      Customers are learning to game us.  I had a company president tell me that he no longer responds to customer complaints over Twitter. Customers caught on that complaints meant free merchandise and the company became overwhelmed. So they just stopped until they can figure out a solution.  Now even people with real complaints are being ignored because it is too difficult to separate the real problems from the gamers.

So, there are a few dangers withn the opportunities. What do you think?  What customer-related dangers could be prompted by using social media in your business?

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission enacted new rules, effective yesterday, calling for bloggers to disclose any connection they have to an advertiser, including both sponsored posts and free products received for reviews or endorsements.

So here’s where I stand –  I don’t have ads.  I will not do paid endorsements.  Period.

I have had the opportunity to go the commercial route, and making money is probably the ultimate aim of most (all?) bloggers.  So I thought this would be a good opportunity to open up a little about where I think {grow} is heading and why a commercial stratey is not part of the picture: 

• I have come to really care about the people on {grow}.  It is awkward for me to sell things to my friends. 
• This has not been a blog for a long time.  It’s a community.  This is a place where people don’t just connect to me, they connect to each other.  I don’t want sponsored posts in the middle of that. In fact, where I could have ads at the top of the blog, I have posted your comments!
• I don’t think I could write what I want to write without having the advertisers in the back of my mind.
• At this point in my life, it’s more rewarding to create an authentic learning, helping community than to make a few bucks off of it.   Once in a while I sense that this space makes a small difference in somebody.  This is better than money to me.

You’ve heard me say time and again that bottom line, social media is all about the money. In an indirect way it is for me too, so don’t peg me as Mr. Altrusitc quite yet!  A blog helps me enormously as a teaching tool in the classroom and also shows to my business clients that I practice what I preach.  But at its core, I do believe {grow} is destined to be different. 

To make this little experiment work, you need to be active — yeah, I’m talking to YOU!    

• Please, please, please jump in. Comment and debate and joke around.  Let everybody know you’re HERE!
• Reach out to others in the community and help when appropriate.  We’re all in this together.
• By re-tweeting posts, you’re inviting others in your audience to join the party, which adds to the richness and diversity of the content we’re developing together.  When the community grows, we will all benefit.

So what do you think about this social experiment?  It’s really been taking off, but what can we all do to make it even better? Or, do you think this is just dumb and I should take the money! : )

P.S. The day after the rule took effect, this is how social meda blogger Jason Falls started his post:

As I’ve indicated before, content ranking and analytics service Postrank is a sponsor of Social Media Explorer. One of the benefits of that sponsorship is one post per month about them …

As I’ve said several times, Jason is one of my favorite bloggers but man, that is a gig I would NOT want to maintain!

The GE Social Media Team: Gary Sheffer, Jen Walsh, Sean Gannon, Lisa Lanspery, Mike Eisenreich, Megan Parker and Vivek Kemp