Ravens Football and Social Media

This past weekend marked the end of the 2010 football season for me. My local team, the Baltimore Ravens couldn't get past their rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the 2nd round of the AFC Playoffs. I still feel an emptiness.

As I reflected on the season, I realized how much social media played into it. In addition to generating my own tweets from our tailgate or during the game, I had just as much fun following other Twitter users. Whether it was other local fans, local sports writers like @mattvensel, @jamisonhensley, or @wbalpete, or even Ravens players like @rayrice27 and @WillisMcGahee. I even had the chance to interact with out of state friends as our teams clashed on the gridiron. It truly made it a more rich and enjoyable experience. Now if we had only beaten the damn Steelers......

Banning Social Media in the Workplace

I recently came across an interesting and disturbing statistic the other day. According to a Robert Half Technology CIO survey released earlier this year, over 55% of the 1,400 CIO's surveyed ban the use of social networking sites in the workplace. I really found that quite disturbing.

If the concern is productivity, individual employees in their 20's are as likely to be engaged via their smart phone as they are through their work pc. So they will find a way to engage their friends through these social outlets even when they are banned. It seems a strong stance to take in this day and age.

For corporate marketing, this may be the biggest constraint that individual marketers will face in using these tools. How can you build any type of meaningful social media engagement if your company bans it in the workplace? The better answer, in my opinion, is to build a social media policy that addresses these issues and draws the line between personal and corporate involvement. I addressed this in an earlier post this year. There is also an online database of other social media policies you may want to explore as well.