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I recently produced a short video blog to further discuss transparent consumer relations. After days of dubbing tapes, re-shooting footage, saving and re-saving for video and sound, and the usual video production frustrations, I now have a completed “vlog post.”
Video blogs and webcasts can potentially cost between $5,000 and $7,000, not to mention the cost of production hours. Are video blogs really worth the time, money and effort that companies pour into them to enhance the relationships with their key publics? Do these videos make the company more transparent to consumers, employees and shareholders? Or are they just a form of entertainment to add to the hype of the corporate website, blog or newsroom?
Southwest Airlines hosts a video blog on its corporate blog, Nuts about Southwest. Video blog posts range anywhere from new Southwest TV commercials and scripted humor videos to footage from promotional events. While these videos meet the fun cultural standards at Southwest, they may not add to the overall transparency of the organization—they just function as entertainment for the Southwest online audience. However, these videos do exemplify Southwest’s ability to break down the corporate marketing voice and use down-to-earth, humorous authenticity.
Check out this video posted on Nuts about Southwest around St. Patrick’s Day. Two Southwest employees give viewers a glimpse into their exciting day. Could they be showing hints of authenticity and transparency?
Accenture also has a video blog. Though the videos are less entertaining than Southwest, Accenture uses them to build transparency.
In the video below, for instance, an Accenture employee describes how she balances her life at work and life outside of the office. The folks at Accenture have given her the freedom to talk about recent vacations complete with personal anecdotes. This employee can be completely transparent and authentic, even in as serious an environment as an IT consulting firm.
Check out the video post on Accenture’s video blog site.
While some companies embrace the use of Facebook, even for work-related collaboration purposes, other companies are setting up firewalls to ban the use of Facebook in the workplace.
In an episode of, “For Immediate Release,” Shel Holtz speaks with CEO and President of Serena Software, Jeremy Burton about Serena “Facebook Fridays.”
Every Friday, the company allots an hour of time for employees to spend solely on Facebook. Before the company implemented the program, about 30% of employees already had active Facebook accounts. Virtual attendance of “Facebook Friday” isn’t required, though employees are encouraged to take advantage of this social media usage time.
Burton believes Facebook brings people together and makes up for the “human” communication that’s lost through channels such as email, text messaging and content management systems lack. However, Facebook also allows employees to interact with people on all levels of the company, breaking down hierarchal barriers to upper level management.
Facebook brings the subculture that exists within any organization offline to the virtual realm. Burton compares Facebook to sitting at Starbucks; we watch people go by and interact with others. Based on watching conversations between people in this subculture, we learn something about them or are, therefore, more inclined to strike up conversations.
Facebook is comparable to the “water cooler” within the organization where corporate gossip and personal or professional anecdotes are passed along. Facebook just takes water cooler relationships and cements them online.
However, critics of corporate Facebook argue that it reduces productivity, slows down bandwidth, compromises corporate professionalism and causes danger to security. Do employees share too much about their personal lives on Facebook? Will they spend too much time and money people-watching on this “cyber Starbucks?”
Organizations need to realize that no matter if they ban or embrace Facebook, employees will find a way to use it, and it will ultimately affect the organization in some way. The same information that gets passed through the grapevine at the water cooler, and then home to the dinner table or to happy hour, now has the possibility to circulate on Facebook as well.
