by Robert Holland
Communication at Work, Tuesday, March 03, 2009
One of the leaders of online social networking is learning a hard lesson about how the movement has changed the nature of communication. Organizations would be wise to heed the lesson.
Facebook, with 175 million users worldwide – and still growing – recently tried to communicate changes to its terms of service. Emphasis is on the word tried because an uproar ensued over who owns the content users post on their Facebook pages. The changes implied that Facebook owned rights to users’ content, which includes photos and other personal information, even after users closed their accounts.
Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was thrust into damage-control mode, assuring Facebook users that they own their content and expressing remorse that the company led anyone to believe otherwise.
Last week, Zuckerberg took his mea culpa a step farther, sharing drafts of two documents with users. One is “Facebook Principles,” which are statements of values that guide the service’s development. The other is a “Statement of Rights and Responsibilities,” which clarifies that users own the content they post on Facebook. Zuckerberg invited users to comment on the documents and then to vote on the policy statement. There is a catch: the policy is not binding unless at least 30 percent of users vote. The jury is still out on whether or not they will.
The episode illustrates how the communication game has changed for organizations in this era of social media. In the really old days, organizations communicated to stakeholders (including employees, customers, etc.). In recent years, a two-way model of communication emerged in which organizations gave stakeholders the opportunity to respond and sometimes to initiate communication. Now, it’s not enough to simply listen to stakeholders. Engagement is the name of the game.
Engagement implies more than response or even dialogue. Engagement is about active participation by stakeholders. In the Facebook example, the company doesn’t just invite users to provide feedback on its policy. It invites users to become part of the process, to take ownership and help shape the policy. More important, Facebook didn’t engage users because Zuckerberg and company are such nice guys. No, the company was compelled to engage users because users feel an innate ownership of the service. In his remarks to news media, Zuckerberg acknowledged that his company had underestimated the sense of ownership Facebook users feel.
Increasing numbers of organizations are using social-networking tools to communicate with – and engage – employees, customers, shareholders, business partners and other constituents. There is tremendous power in engagement. The benefits are many: an increased sense of ownership and commitment to the organization, improved productivity, greater innovation and the potential for cost savings, to name a few.
However, organizational leaders must realize that the nature of communication changes as engagement increases. The old models of communication – top-down, controlling the message, paying lip service to stakeholders – don’t work in this new world. Change is necessary.
Even Facebook has had to learn that lesson.
Robert J. Holland, ABC, has managed
award-winning publications, developed strategic communication plans,
and managed media relations. For nearly 20 years, he has helped leading
organizations discover the power of communication to add value to the
bottom line. Before starting Holland Communication Solutions in 2000,
Robert held communication leadership positions with AT&T, Lucent
Technologies and Capital One Financial.
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