10 - Social media is a fad
I think the statistics speak for themselves, as presented in Erik Qualman's video, Social Media Revolution (v2). A huge number of people are using these tools in their daily lives and it is having a significant impact on all types of activities - personal, business as well as learning.
9 - It's about controlling the message
Control is a myth; there has never been any real control. How do you control the conversations people have on the phone, in emails, in the restaurant, in the pub after work.
8 - Employees will goof off
Is this really a problem. The company is made up of real people. The human side of a business is very important.
7 - Social media is a time waster
Wait! We've done this one before. People get distracted by all types of things, especially if they are not motivated by their work. The answer is to help them make their job more interesting or rewarding; not ban social media
6 - Social media has no business purpose
The power of social media marketing is huge, just view these companies using it. Internally, social media can help with all kind of business tasks, see A Practical Guide to using social media in your job.
5 - Employees can't be trusted
Why don't you fire them then! Seriously though, trust is a two-way thing, and social media is actually a good way to build trust. This article says: "Social media marketing is a long-term strategy of relationship building to get a consumer to invest in your product. Using similar relationship building ideas will prove to be an effective long-term strategy for getting your employees to invest more of themselves in your company."
4 - Don't cave into the demands of the millennials
It's not just millennials that use social media. Facebook stats, for instance, show the user base that has been growing fastest is the 33-54 age range
3 - Your teams already share knowledge effectively
I don't think so. Public social media tools are used (often unknowingly by managers) in organisations to provide teams with sharing and collaborative functionality that they are lacking in many enterprise systems, which are fundamentally top-down content-delivery systems.
2 - You'll get viruses
Not if you have up-todate virus protection in place. This certainly hasn't stopped people using email, where viruses are rife.
1 - Your competition isn't using it, so why should you?
As shown above, a huge number of companies are using it for social media marketing purposes: A Wiki of Social Media Marketing Examples. And here's a growing list or organisations using social media in the workplace.
