When I started out in management, the new media was msn messenger.
Every man and his dog sat by his computer and chatted with others in real time around the world.
Receptionists were doing it, telemarketers were doing it and even some CEO's were doing it.
In some ways, it was a useful tool for business purposes at work, but in others, a real waste of the companies time.
There's a huge debate in most workplaces now and that is, should staff be allowed to use social medias like Twitter, Facebook and the like at work or should they be banned as staff might damage the companies reputation? Things have changed a lot as far as Social media goes in the last few years.
A recent study found that 54% of companies have banned the use of these medias at the workplace.
They fear that the potential damage to the companies reputation and the reputation of the poster themselves.
One regrettable post can be a career damaging move.
In fact, some movie studios now have banned their stars from using twitter and other social medias for fear of ruining movie plots.
Is it all going a bit far? Instead of just telling your staff what they aren't allowed to do, why not instead turn it into a positive and tell them what they are allowed to do with social media? Amber Naslund who is the Director of Community at Radian6 says just that.
There's no denying that media of a social kind can be a great tool for companies to use to brand themselves as long as it's used responsibly.
First off, management should decide what they want to get out of using these social media tools.
Once those goals have been figured out, then a decision should be made about policies and how they're going to be implemented.
Obviously, one of the biggest concerns a company has is time being wasted on social medias.
And that's fair enough.
I've seen it a lot, especially in retail when things were a little slow staff were filling in time by chatting on msn, twitter, Facebook and myspace.
There are lots of social media tools available but that doesn't mean a company has to use them all.
Management has to figure out what its goals are, wheather its to drive traffic to their website, release information about a product or to just provide better customer service.
Then they need to work out which social media outlets are going to be of any benefit and if all staff can have access to it or just a few key people.
As part of the management team, you can have a huge input into how social media can be used in your company.
It pays to keep informed about modern tools that can be used to improve your brand and services.
There's no doubt at all that social medias are a very powerful tool for driving sales and if your company has clear and precise policies about which ones are used and by whom, it's just another tool in your sales peoples arsenal to win the sales pitch every time.
With these extra tools, you can help to make sure they hit their targets every day, week, month and year.