Social Media Archives - Page 4 of 6

Pre-Conference Twitter Advice for Vendors

January 23, 2012 By Arnold Tijerina

I’ve had the privilege of handling social media for nine major automotive industry conferences in the last few years. (the 1st and 2nd DrivingSales Executive Summits, the 8th-11th Digital Dealer Conference & Expositions, and the 1st and 2nd Innovative Dealer Summits). In that time, I’ve also tried to include exhibitors and sponsors in the conference’s social media campaigns both for their benefit and for the conference’s.

I routinely asked them for Twitter accounts and created lists of those accounts for people following the conference Twitter account (like this one) whether they provided it for me or not (lots of searching Twitter, sadly). We left spots on speaking applications asking for their information and we had the sales team ask. If I had to guess, only about 15% actually provided this information and even less actually used social media to reach out and engage with attendees.

As you can imagine, there is a lot of “pre-conference” promotion (by the conference) and an essential piece of that was done via social media. Attendees would start getting excited and I would see Twitter conversations start ramping up via the conference hashtag. What I wouldn’t see is vendors participating in those conversations. No matter how hard and how many times I would advise a vendor that they should, they just wouldn’t do it. So for the few months leading up to the conference, there would be plenty of conference-related chatter (“Are you going?” “I’m excited” “Let’s get together”, etc) but virtually no vendor engagement. Amusingly enough, I have even had dealership attendees on Twitter publicly noticing and inquiring about the lack of vendors.

About a week before the conference…. it hits. Like someone hit a “Go” button somewhere. Vendors galore. All over Twitter. It was great that they would finally start participating but the problem was that there was no engagement and they were late to the party. A typical vendor’s tweet would read something like “We have your magic solution! Come visit us at booth #1234” or “We’re giving away an iPad2! Come to booth #1234 to enter”. By this point, they are entering (and creating) noise. The dealers and managers attending see this. They know that there is virtually no value in those tweets. They’ve received the countless pre-conference e-mails from vendors promoting something or other all with the same basic call-to-action of “come to our booth”.

On the flip side of this, I see vendors who DO engage with attendees. I see the vendors that engage attendees successfully setting up demo appointments and building interest and rapport with attendees. On the conference side, I always tried to increase their exposure (and the conference’s) by re-tweeting those vendors and encouraging people to interact with them. I rewarded exhibitors and sponsors for contributing to, and participating in, the conversation. What I didn’t retweet was blatant sales-only type tweets.

Fact: The 11th Digital Dealer Conference & Exposition hashtag saw 9,100 tweets from over 1,400 unique people with a combined reach of almost 100,000 people that generated over 9 million impressions…. and this was only from people that tweeted with the hashtag!

Why a vendor would want to skip out of being included in this is beyond me. I think they don’t understand social media 101 – the whole point of social media is not only to engage with your primary audience, it’s also to reach THEIR social network. The only other reason I can think of that they’re not doing this is that they can’t be bothered or see no value in it.

Vendors need to realize that conference attendees paying attention to the conference hashtag don’t want to see your 140 character sales pitch a week before the conference while, at the same time, they are receiving all the direct mail pieces and e-mail marketing campaigns that are hitting their real (and virtual) in-boxes. You become noise. Spam.

They are willing and want to engage with you but you must start this engagement MONTHS before the conference and it must be REAL engagement.You want to get a dealer’s attention pre-conference? Start talking to them pre-conference, not selling to them.

Sell to them at your booth, not on Twitter.

Who Is Tapping YOUR DMS?

January 5, 2012 By Arnold Tijerina

There is a lot of controversy in the automotive industry regarding which vendors are pulling data (customer or transactional) from a dealer’s DMS and then re-selling it to vendors like TrueCar and others. (I guarantee you that TrueCar is not the only vendor that’s using your data against you, FYI)

[Note: For non-automotive industry readers: DMS stands for Data Management System and is what contains all customer, financial, vehicle and transactional data (ie. all that information on the credit application you filled out when you bought that car). There are dealer vendors (website companies, 3rd party services like TrueCar.com, Edmunds.com, Cars.com, etc.) that are given access to this information for various reasons.]

Consumer privacy laws and red flag compliance keep getting stricter and stricter when it comes to customer personal information and how it needs to be protected. This is all well and good but I’d argue that most consumers don’t care about their personal information. They may say they do but actions speak louder than words.

An industry acquaintance shared a website yesterday that assists people in seeing, and cleaning up, which apps and websites are accessing your various social media accounts. (You can find it at http://mypermissions.org/ )

As I played around with it, there wasn’t much in there that surprised me but I’m also very diligent about which apps I allow to access my information and I periodically monitor them to remove permissions for apps or websites I no longer use. Even though I do that, there were a few in there that I was surprised to see. I guarantee you that a normal consumer has way more apps and websites accessing their personal information than I do – games, iPhone apps, websites with social media log-ins, plug-ins etc. Most require (or ask) to access your personal information to use their service. How convenient is it to use Facebook Connect? It’s super-easy but, every time you do, you are giving yet another website or app permission to access your personal information – essentially trading your information for convenience and/or the ability to utilize that particular website.

As I thought about this collection of different social media sites – Facebook, Twitter, G+, LinkedIn, etc. – it started to feel more and more to me like this was MY OWN PERSONAL DMS.

These accounts – singly and collectively – contain more personal information about me than any other source including the government.

Those social networks are free to use, but are they really? In one sense, they do exactly what your vendors are doing to your dealership’s DMS – selling your personal information for profit. Most consumers know this on some level and have chosen to allow that access in exchange for their information on some level. Sure, there are times when a consumer outcry occurs – say when Facebook changes a privacy setting – but those quickly go away mostly because the consumer modifies the permissions again (ie. who can see your posts or other activity on Facebook).

So consumers do care about protecting their information, posts, etc. from people on an individual level, what they’re not shielding themselves from or thinking about is what companies are getting their personal data (either from the sites themselves or from outside apps and websites that they’ve allowed access) and what those companies are doing with it.

So, while we’re in an uproar about what vendors are getting access to customer data and what they are doing with it, keep in mind that you also have your own personal DMS and, just like you should care who has access to your customer’s information, you should care about who has access to your own.

Fantasy Guru’s Social Media Fail

December 23, 2011 By Arnold Tijerina

My brother is a fantasy sports freak. He especially gets into football. Every Sunday, you can find him firmly planted in front of my TV watching my Sunday Ticket subscription with his laptop in his lap cycling through his many teams refreshing his fantasy football scores. You’d think he was in the stadium sometimes as he yells (or cheers) at the television. He’s also hyper-competitive.

We play in one league together and, at any point in time, he knows, off the top of his head, all the league’s statistics. Who’s in first place..Who has the most points..Playoff scenarios..etc. He’s made 74 roster changes whereas the rest of a 12 team-league has made a combined average of 11 moves (and that’s with my above-average 37 moves included). I stopped checking Yahoo for my scores and info. I just ask him now.

He’s been a fan of, and subscriber to, a premium fantasy football website named FantasyGuru.com run by John Hansen who has been affiliated with major companies and personalities including hosting a radio show, SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio with FoxSports.com’s Adam Caplan which was so popular that it became a seven-day-a-week program during the NFL season which included senior writers Matt Camp and Joe Dolan. He’s participated in celebrity drafts including Ashton Kutcher, has published on ESPN.com, and has appeared on television in projects with NFL.com, NFL Network, DirecTV, ComCast SportsNet, and even a cameo on an episode of FX’s The League.

This week my brother is particularly passionate as he’s playing his big brother (me) in our league’s playoffs. He uses the advice and statistics from this website to help him analyze players, waiver wire pickups, and to assist him in choosing his lineup each week.

He’s not a social media person. That being said, he does have a Twitter account. It has only 1 follower (me) and he’s tweeted only 4 times. The ONLY reason he has a Twitter account is to watch the tweets of @Fantasy_Guru to get up-to-the-minute injury reports and news.

So, in this weeks projections, one player – Donald Brown of the Indianapolis Colts – was projected to do well on a combined list of running backs and wide receivers. Long story short, the player hardly played at all and ended up with low points.

Because of his passion and the desire to win against his big brother and advance to our league’s championship, he tweets this out to the Fantasy Guru twitter account:

Keep in mind that this guy (@Fantasy_Guru) has over 25,000 followers. He gets mentioned and/or tweeted to continuously. My brother is square in the middle of his demographic – hyper-competitive people passionate about fantasy football. It’s hard to believe that his analysis isn’t challenged or critiqued by other people via Twitter. The guy isn’t always right but I don’t think anyone really believes he has a crystal ball.

For whatever reason, he took exception to this particular tweet and sent this direct message in response:

My brother only followed him and has only 1 follower. @Fantasy_Guru has 25,009 followers and follows only 266 and (obviously) doesn’t follow my brother. I understand that. He follows sportswriters, teams and players to get information which he then passes along to his subscribers/followers and he does it very well.

First, seeing as this person runs a BUSINESS in which he charges ~$30 per year, you’d think he’d be more careful alienating and lashing out at people. Notice that he chose to direct message my brother rather than reply publicly. This was particularly frustrating to my brother since he couldn’t respond to the message since @Fantasy_Guru doesn’t follow him. That’s certainly not a way to treat paying customers and a poor choice on his part. My guess is he chose to direct message because by replying like that publicly would make him look bad.

Little did he realize that my brother has been a subscriber of his for 11 years and has referred many people to also subscribe to his service. While $330 in income may not mean anything to John Hansen, it is definitely a luxury to my brother. The amount of money doesn’t excuse abusing your customers.

It took him about 10 seconds to destroy a loyal customer. Not a smart business decision.

Now my brother follows nobody.

Social media is a powerful medium. No matter what size your business is, customer service matters. Do you think Southwest Airlines or Ford would ever think about responding to a customer this way?? Imagine this DM coming from Southwest: “You set up a Twitter account just to complain? Go fly another airline.” Not going to happen. Any employee who did that would be fired instantly. Ask Scott Monty or Christi McNeill.

As the old saying goes, “A happy customer tells 10 friends, an unhappy one tells everybody.”

Now thousands of people will know that he apparently doesn’t value his subscribers.

[UPDATE: Apparently Matt Camp read my article. His response was to make fun of a math mistake (which I’ve since edited). I guess he values his audience just as much as John Hansen does.

[UPDATE 2: I guess John Hansen got annoyed with my tweets as he’s decided to block me. Can’t take the heat?]

Target Gets Robbed via Facebook Promotion

December 13, 2011 By Arnold Tijerina

In yet another example of “promotions gone wrong”, Target just got robbed by it’s Facebook fans and a bunch of thieves opportunists.

Target had a promotion via its Facebook page for a coupon which gave a customer a $10 gift card for spending $50. The coupon could be printed only via coupon printing software and you could only print it a certain number of times, yet the coupons did not have unique barcodes. (Kinkos anyone?) It was a great deal for Christmas shoppers or even grocery shoppers (via a Super Target) but a bunch of people figured out how to game the system and abuse the promotion.

I became aware of it through SlickDeals, a forum for bargain hunters. As people used and experimented with this coupon, they found that they were able to purchase gift cards and get the corresponding free $10 gift card from the promotion even though the coupon stated that gift card purchases were ineligible. Also, seeing as the coupons were not unique, any photocopier skirted the whole printing limitations from the coupon printing software.

As you can see via this 37 page thread with almost 1500 posts, people found that they could effectively rob Target legally (At least I think its legal. I’m not an attorney.) What they found they could do was this:

They would buy a $50 Target gift card, use the coupon and get a $10 Target gift card free. They would then purchase another $50 Target gift card using the FIRST $50 Target gift card to pay for the SECOND Target gift card, use another coupon and get another $10 Target gift card. (Initial purchase: $50. Profit: $20. etc.) Rinse and repeat. (Since you’re not actually purchasing anything, you’ll always have your initial $50 in the form of a gift card and, since you’re using the gift card to buy more gift cards, each transaction just nets you $10.)

There are a number of people who claim to have netted as much as $5,000 in free Target gift cards off their initial $50 investment. This promotion started November 30, 2011 and ended December 3, 2011.

What was surely as a result of the “resounding success” of the first coupon (probably solely judged by redemption quantity), Target decided to bring back this promotion 4 days later (December 7, 2011 through December 10, 2011). I’m sure someone at the corporate office was so impressed by the results, they wanted to start giving people raises and handing out trophies to stores for having the most “loyal” fans in their area.

By re-starting the promotion, you can see via this second thread which is 51 pages long with over 2000 posts, they effectively green lighted all of the original people who abused the promotion to do it again and also allowed those who missed out on the first opportunity to rob Target to join in the looting. This was a concerted effort by people who conspired to abuse this program on a national level. (Gotta love the internet!)

The thread is addicting to read. It’s like watching a train wreck reality show. It’s hard to believe that someone somewhere connected to Target isn’t watching this. In fact, based on statements made by the Slickdeals moderators, Target was aware (however minimally) of the thread since they asked SlickDeals not to post a PDF or image of the coupon. I’m sure they wanted the web traffic to their website versus to SlickDeals.

The dedication, time and effort invested by some of these people is impressive. I’m also astounded by the apparent lack of training or caring shown by the Target employees who allowed this coupon abuse as well as the failure of store management to recognize that it was happening in the first place. This failure and lack of training is obvious due to the inconsistency of success these people report experiencing. When you have to start disguising yourself, visiting multiple cashiers and you get rejected but still keep trying, an intelligent person would know that they are, at the very least, doing something wrong, even if their conscience hadn’t already told them that earlier.

Oh, and to put further emphasis on the failure of this promotion, many of the looters people, once they had collected as many free gift cards as they desired (or the promotion ended), then took all those free $10 gift cards and proceeded to buy Visa and Amex gift cards with them, thus negating them from even having to spend the free money they stole got from Target at Target. I’m sure other retailers appreciate Target’s monetary infusion into the economy and into their store’s Christmas bottom line. (Hey, I got a bunch of free Target gift cards, let’s go spend them at Wal-Mart!)

In my opinion, this tops the absurdity of the “Kindle Fire Deal That Wasn’t Supposed To Be” post I wrote a few weeks ago, and is another reason why social media promotions must be monitored and measured carefully. Just looking in your computer and seeing how many coupons were redeemed, at least in this case, isn’t an indicator of how effective the campaign was. It was an indicator of how screwed over Target got.

Merry Christmas, Target!

When Dealer Promotions Go Wrong

November 29, 2011 By Arnold Tijerina

In browsing a popular deal website, Slickdeals, I noticed a thread titled “20% off all new Chevrolets (Arizona)”. Out of curiosity, I thought I’d check it out. I was more curious to see if the dealer (or an employee) posted this or if it was something that a forum member posted.

Wow. Talk about negative publicity. Here are some choice comments from the thread from people who TRIED to take advantage of this deal posted on the dealership’s website (which does actually say “20% off All New Chevrolets”) and one local customer who decided to chime in about his buying experience at this dealership.

“Interesting. Called the dealer and he stated that the deals are good for Arizona residents, although this isn’t stated anywhere on the website. Doubt very much that the OP was successful in securing a car from these guys. I was trying to buy a Chevrolet Volt from them. The salesman was very accommodating, suggesting that I falsify my residency to obtain the price. Imagine that, a dealership suggesting that we do something illegal so that we can take advantage of their poor advertising and sales tactic. Unfortunately this is another example of one poorly run dealership proving the stereotype that all dealers are thieves. Sad really.”

“Get ready. My deal went all the way to the owner. Just another car dealer living down to their reputation.”

“I’ll be interested to see if any of you get the deal. I live close to this dealership and recently tried to buy a new truck that was listed in an ad. Went to the dealership that morning and was told that the truck listed in the ad “wasn’t available.” The salesman offered me a truck with the same exact options, color and sticker price as the one listed in the ad, for $2,000 more than the price listed in the newspaper.”

They even included a response e-mail from the Internet Manager at this dealership that they got when inquiring:

“Hi Chris … Thanks for your email 11-27-11 on the New Chevrolet Volt #120126 and choosing Sands Chevrolet in Surprise for your next Chevrolet purchase.

This Volt is available from Inventory here in Arizona. Is that a CRAZY PRICE or what? $7,500 of this Huge Discount will be in the form of a Tax Credit at Year End Tax Time, and you will also need to be a Resident of Arizona to purchase at this Special Price.

There are no Rebates or Special Interest Rates at this time. Please call or email me.

Thanks
XXX XXXXX
Internet Manager”

To date, over 5,000 people have viewed this thread.

That’s 5,000 people who were interested enough in buying a new Chevrolet that they clicked on the thread to get the details and found the above types of comments.

Done right, that could’ve been 5,000 leads. This probably led to 5,000 people who aren’t going to buy a car at this dealership.

Inflatable Gorillas vs. Social Media

November 18, 2011 By Arnold Tijerina

The question I hear asked the most by dealers when talking to them about social media is “What’s the ROI? How do I measure that?” The problem with getting a buy-in from them is that they want to see a straight line between a Facebook post or tweet and a sale. Sometimes that’s possible but most of the time, it isn’t.

My rebuttal is, “What’s the ROI on the inflatable gorilla on the roof? How do you measure that? Do you have a source in your CRM for “Gorilla” similar to the infamous “Billboard” one you have?”

Inevitably, they can’t answer that question. Funny thing is that even Google got into the “gorilla” game when they posted an ad for PPC advertising stating that Google Adwords would have “tons of customers headed your way” and implying that the gorilla would not (which they were promptly sued for by the makers of inflatable gorillas).

The most common thought is that the giant inflatable gorilla gets people’s attention (just like the weekend tradition of “ballooning” the cars. Nobody that I ever know of said that they stopped at a dealership and bought a car because they saw a gorilla on the roof. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I’ve seen many comments by consumers that say inflatable gorillas are insulting to them. Some have even said that they are an indicator of an “old-school” dealership and would avoid these dealers at all cost.

Social media, on the other hand, when done properly, can increase customer loyalty, satisfaction and referrals through engagement with your customers. There are TONS of examples of this result from HUGE companies (Ford, Southwest Airlines, etc.). I’ve NEVER heard a customer say those things about a dealership using social media (with the exception of dealers that spam their customers with inventory).

Let’s assume that you can’t track ROI on social media (which is incorrect) and that you can’t track it on an inflatable gorilla, which end of the spectrum would you rather be on?

There’s only one way I could see an inflatable gorilla actually working and that’s if it can do this:

….jump off the roof and physically drag customers in.

So, if you’re willing to put an inflatable gorilla on your roof, balloon-up your lot every weekend, have a “hot-dog food fest” or any of the other things that surely have people (presumably) slamming on their brakes on the freeway to come to your dealership and buy a car, then why wouldn’t you have a presence on social media whether you can measure it’s ROI or not?

What do you think of giant inflatable gorillas on car dealerships?

Buffer: What It Is and Why You Want It

November 16, 2011 By Arnold Tijerina

When I went to BlogWorld LA, I met up with a friend of mine, James Stayton. As I’m walking around googly-eyed at the likes of Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, etc., he jumps when he sees this one guy with a “Buffer” shirt on. We go over and James starts telling this guy how much he loves Buffer and about how much he likes the new features, etc. I had never heard of Buffer so I asked the guy (who turned out to be a co-founder, Leo Wid) to show me how it worked. I signed up (as it’s free) and told him I’d check it out. At the time, the Facebook posting was still in beta, (he let me in on the very tail of that) but now, I believe, it’s live for anyone who signs up.

So, what is Buffer?

Buffer is an easy service that allows you to share information without overwhelming your networks (the networks in this article I’m referring to are Twitter and Facebook). How it does this is that they use an algorithm that determines what the best times of the day (ie. most trafficked and used) are and it schedules them for those times automatically. It also “buffers” your posts so that you aren’t sending a ton out at once and overwhelming your followers/friends. It will determine how many you should be posting and automatically schedule them for when they are most likely to be read or clicked through and it will space them out in time for you also. There is also a “Post Now” button if you don’t want to send it later.

I’ve been (and I am) a Hootsuite Pro user for a long time. I love Hootsuite but it is a pain to schedule tweets with any kind of strategy involved. I still use Hootsuite but now I use Buffer as a compliment to it so that I can share great content without having to even THINK about when I should tweet or post something and how much is too much, etc.

…and one of my FAVORITE parts of Buffer is that it allows me to use my custom URL shortener automatically! You just plug in your shortener information (in this case, I use bit.ly for my shortener – arni.es) and it automatically uses YOUR shortener for any websites you add to your buffer. Hootsuite charges $50 per month if you want this feature!

Anyways, I don’t get this excited about a new service (God knows there are plenty of them popping up all the time.) but this one has me pumped. I’ve been using it now for a couple of weeks and I love it.

A dealership (or any business) could use this to pre-load a week’s worth of content very easily then sit back and sell some cars!

Check it out , sign up and send your first tweet by clicking HERE!

Can Your Dealership Be Too Social?

November 16, 2011 By Arnold Tijerina

I hope dealerships realize that a social media presence is necessary these days. Hopefully, there is someone at your dealership handling this. More likely than not, this task has been assigned to someone which this is NOT their primary responsibility.

That being said, is there a thing as being “too social”?

There are many social networks out there and new ones popping up everyday. In a perfect world, dealers would have a dedicated person that could keep up with and manage them all by posting new content (preferably original) via blogs and all the social networks with their listening ears on. Most dealers, however, don’t have the budget for this type of person. It’s hard enough for ME to keep up with them all much less to ask a dealer to.

Would it be better if a dealer picked a few and concentrated on being really good at those instead of spreading themselves so thin that they aren’t managing or maintaining an active presence on them all? It’s not enough just to have a Facebook page or G+ page or Twitter account, you have to engage and keep fresh content on it.. nurture it.

Right now we have Facebook, Twitter, G+, Google Places, LinkedIn, YouTube, … and the list goes on. Now Microsoft is about to enter the game with Microsoft Socl.. yet another social network to maintain. Right now, there are 205 websites listed on Wikipedia as “social networking sites” (Yes, I counted them). You can’t effectively manage all of them (and most of them wouldn’t apply either) but you do still have to figure in managing your online reputation through sites like Yelp, DealerRater, etc as well as the location-based services out there like Foursquare.. Oh, and don’t forget about blogging!

It’s exhausting to think about, isn’t it? I promise it’s just as exhausting to actually do.

My advice: If you don’t have (or can’t afford, or don’t want to afford) a person that can actually manage this full-time, pick a few sites mixing up social, reputation management, location-based and a blog… and be good at them.

What Does The Government Think About Your Social Media Policy?

September 9, 2011 By Arnold Tijerina

Back in June, I broke news on a case that involved a BMW dealership firing a salesperson for posting critical comments about the dealership and pictures of an accident that occurred on a nearby dealership’s lot (that happened to be owned by the same people).

Due to the huge increase in social media use by the general population as a form of communication, The National Labor Relation Board is aggressively going after companies that terminate employees for issues in regards to social media use. Until now, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to which cases they were supporting and which they weren’t. The information was there, but unless you were actively seeking these cases, chances are you wouldn’t find them.

In an effort to coordinate the prosecution of cases involving social media, Anne Purcell, Associate General Counsel for the National Labor Relations Board, wrote and released a 24 page report on August 18, 2011 summarizing cases involving social media and explaining why they have chosen to prosecute (or not) these cases. In doing so, they’ve given insight into what you can and can’t do as an employer including what they believe your social media policy should (or shouldn’t) say.

Keep in mind that this is a summary of the cases and issues that they’ve determined merit prosecution. While some of the cases have been settled, many of these cases have trials pending. In no way are these laws or precedents…yet. However, in knowing what they do and don’t consider valid complaints, it can help any employer construct a more solid social media policy that would, at the very least, withstand the scrutiny of the National Labor Relations Board. It also gives insight into what, if any, disciplinary action you can take against an employee in regards to social media use.

In summary, based on the collective summaries of the cases, here are some guidelines I’ve extrapolated from the report for your social media policies and disciplinary considerations:

They’re huge on protected concerted activity. Employees can discuss and criticize their employer, supervisors and co-workers as long as they don’t stand alone in their criticisms. Your employees can call you a “scumbag”, an “a-hole”, a “super mega puta” or whatever else as long as they have co-workers that share their opinion. They have the right to discuss working conditions and their employer anywhere, including via social media. The keyword here is that it must be a discussion. Personal gripes don’t count.

You can’t have overly-broad social media policies. Things you can’t include in your social media policies:

Prohibit employees from making negative comments about the company, their supervisors or their co-workers.
Posting pictures of themselves which depict the company in any way (ie. in uniform, on the job, etc.)
Prohibit them from using inappropriate, offensive or rude language in regards to a coworker, the company, or a customer.
Prohibit inappropriate discussions via blogs.
Prohibit employees from discussing company business on their own time on their personal accounts.
Prohibit employees from disclosing inappropriate or sensitive information about the company.
Prohibit employees from posting pictures or comments involving the company or its employees that would be considered inappropriate.
Prohibit employees from using the company name, address, or other company information on their personal profiles.
Prohibit employees from using the company’s logo or photographs of the company’s store.

How many of these does your company have in its social media policy?

I bet quite a few. You’re probably thinking “Holy Cow” about now. Seems as if employees can do anything they want! That’s not true. What IS true is this: these company’s social media policies (when they had them) contained restrictions that were overly broad and encompassing. Employees have a right to bitch about their workplace, bosses and company, whether it’s aloud or via any type of social media, including Facebook, Twitter or blogging. It doesn’t matter whether you have an “At-Will Employment Agreement”.

So how do you restrict your employee’s social media use through policy without it being considered overly-broad? I mean, come on, you can’t account for EVERY possible situation in a written policy.

The answer is actually quite simple. Your policy is overly broad and/or unlawful if it does not contain verbiage that excludes protected concerted activity as defined by Sections 7 and 8 of the National Labor Relations Act. Simply putting a phrase similar to that into your social media policy should protect you in most instances (unless, of course, the activity IS protected).

In addition, when considering whether you can or can’t terminate an employee because of something they posted on social media, you need to ask yourself these questions:

Is this comment posted relating to any form of work conditions?
Is it a shared opinion and/or being discussed with fellow co-workers?

If the answer is yes, I would think twice before disciplining the employee. If the answer is no, you’re probably safe.

This has nothing to do with free speech. It has everything to do with creating policies that would INCLUDE protected concerted activities. To make it short (and provide an example of their reasoning), you can’t tell an employee they can’t post photos or use the company logo on social media without permission because that would include prohibiting the employees from posting photos of them on a picket line in front of your dealership. You can’t simply tell them they cannot talk about the company via social media because that would prohibit them from lawfully discussing working conditions with their co-workers.

Moral of the story: If you’re an employer, make sure your policy excludes protected activity. If you’re an employee, make sure your co-workers agree with you (and chime in).

Disclaimer: The author of this post is not an attorney and in no way should this be considered legal advice.

(Originally published on Dealer magazine)