BW Communities

Just Tweet Your Beat

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[If 2011 was the year the world discovered Twitter's real power, 2012 seems to be the year many have taken fright. It was with some shock that I took in the reports of Sky News, BBC, and CNN saying their journalists  had better watch what they tweet.  Honestly, I thought news institutions had figured out by now that something in the way information and communication -- including news --  moves across the world, has changed forever. Journalists were early adopters of Twitter because they realised that they needed to adapt or even reinvent -- or be overrun. And today many journalists are among the most followed people on Twitter. So, to see a sudden crackdown, is a surprise.  Of course, the relationship between Twitter and news publishes has always been uneasy. That is not surprising as Twitter came along and disrupted traditional ownership structures. News organisations no longer had sole control over news -- but then never before did they have such access to local news in real time, with an idea of its impact on real people, as they do via Twitter. News publishers have lost a lot of their clout and exclusivity but the world also recognises that they are the ones who put out credible and verified news. Much of this bag of mixed blessings is what businesses face as well and that's why they should take a good look at what is happening with these news organisations and figure out their own social media policies before a crisis makes it important to come out with one reactively rather than proactively. So Sky News, reports The Guardian, has asked its journalists not to retweet anyone else, specially not rival news sources. They want their people to stick to tweeting about their assigned area of news. Does that mean a journalist can't say, post a picture of an architectural marvel he happens to come across in the course of duty? The Draconian guidelines also say breaking news should go to the Sky newsroom first and only then to Twitter. What happens here is that Sky News gets a few seconds of extra lead time in a world where news sources are in cutthroat competition with each other. But it loses out on being able to build up its journalists as the human face of the organisation, a brand ambassador, and a source of timely news, no matter where it comes from. Today, we can all think of television and news personalities who are celebrities and brands. To take away their freedom to be who they are would only harm the news institution.And much the same can happen in companies where news is not necessarily the business. Companies need to decide, as part of their approach to their people, whether they want employees to be synonymous with the organisation, whether they want the unique skills and personality of each employee to work for them or separately.  Rules that decree that employees are free to be themselves on their own time and on their own social accounts, are also saying, fit into a fixed mould and stay right inside the box when you're at work. This can hardly benefit the company in the long term. As long as employees are trained and made aware of what is important to the company, trusting them to present an appropriate face to the outside world is important in a world gone social. BBC has not been quite as autocratic and sweeping and has asked journalists to remember that BBC's aim, after all, is to reach BBC's audiences. And so, tweet at the same time as filing a story. That may really not be a bad thing, particularly for BBC, which holds its own where credibility is concerned. BBC has a dedicated audience that may not be all online and has a duty to keep that audience as its priority. The priority may change in the years ahead, but for now, the organisation is clear on who and what comes first. Many businesses may find themselves in a similar position and can make deliberate decisions on the importance they need to give right now to their followers and customers on social networks. CNN has recently suspended analyst Roland Martin because of tweets that could possibly be offensive and homophobic, specially to the gay community. I think it has a right to. But here again, companies should think these things out and state them in a policy -- or brief their employees. This will go a long way to avoiding a social media crisis. There are of course companies that find all of this just too much trouble and ban social media altogether. Or create watertight closed-wall internal networks, negating the very possibility of a problem happening on social networks. That's fine if you're the defence services. But if yours is an organisation that prides itself on innovation and progressive thinking -- forget it.