This proceeding was presented in 4th International Conference on Business Management and Economics, 5-7 June, Çeşme.

EMPLOYEE GENERATED CONTENT IN SOCIAL MEDIA FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATION

Assistant Prof. Dr. Ferah ONAT

Yaşar University

Faculty of Communication, Public Relations Department

Bornova/IZMIR

E-mail: ferah.onat@yasar.edu.tr

Abstract

Employee generated content defines the various online content of employees in the forums, social and business networks, videos, photos, comments and other types of social media. Freedom of speech is a human right but in workplace it is restricted by contracts. Social media gave employees oppurtunity to express themselves in various ways. In this proceeding from the perspective of corporate communication applications different examples of employee generated content will be discussed.

Keywords: Employee Generated Content, Corporate Communication, Internal Communication

JEL Classification: M 10

Introduction

Two Bank of America employees singing a reworked U2 song to celebrate an acquisition (One Bank) Bank Of America - One (U2 Cover) **HIGHER RES** namely video in Youtube was viewed 43256 times, and 163 comments were made on it (6/3/2008). Istanbul CNR Expo Company Foreign Relations Department employees act in two videos produced by interns were broadcast in YouTube. “CNR Yilbasi” and “CNR Yurtdışı Departmanı” entitled videos had totally 1918 times viewed and got 6 comments (6/3/2008). In Facebook Turkish Airlines workers formed a group with 822 members named “Maziden Bugüne THY Çalışanları” (THY Workers From Past to Present) which is related with THY Employees group which has 4 discussion topics. HSBC Bank employees formed many groups in Facebook where different working groups like call center workers, trainees take part in. In a business network a marketing professional launches his profile previous occupations in Xerox and Microsoft, and gathering his collegues in his circle. Southwest and Hewlett Packard employee blogs are very popular in social media. Beyond these interactive media where freedom of speech is given by the nature of social media environment, in real life freedom of speech is restricted by law and by contracts both in public and private sector. Also many companies ban using these media during working hours because of productivity and corporate identity concerns, as well.

The examples given above related to content generated and disseminated by employees in social media. In all kinds of social media channels employees are talking, writing, sending videos about themselves and about their environments, and receiving commands for these. During this communication process, they are carrying their corporate identity to their messages. So there are many questions arising about consequences of messages generated by employees working in reputable companies. The title of the proceeding has different kinds of dimensions. Freedom of speech of employees, internal marketing, employee branding, corporate reputation and other terms related to human resources and corporate communication are all having their places in various parts in the relation between employers and the employees.

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1. Employee Generated Content in Social Media

Employee is the person in the service of another under any contract of hire, expressed or implied, oral or written, where the employer has the power or right to control and direct the employee in the material details of how the work is to be performed (Black's Law Dictionary, 1979: 471). The employee term also defines legal and economic relations between employers and workers. Employee generated content term which defines social media content created by employees originates from the user generated content in web 2.0. The term also emphasises on the consequences of employee speech in web 2.0 (social media).

Web 2.0 is a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively form the basis for the next generation of the Internet- a more natural, distinctive medium characterized by user participation, opennes, and network effects (Tim O’Reilly, Web 2.0 Principles and Best Practices, Researh Report, Fall 2006, http://radar.oreilly.com/research/web2-report.html). Social media term is used as web 2.0 in many places. Social media is the term given to websites and online tools which allow users to interact with each other in some way – by sharing information, opinions, knowledge and interests. Social media involves the building of communities or networks, encouraging participation and engagement. Blogs are the most well known example of social media, but the term encompasses many more platforms. Other examples include podcasts, wikis (such as Wikipedia), message boards, social bookmarking websites (such as del.icio.us), social networking websites (such as Bebo, MySpace, Facebook) and content sharing websites (such as flickr, YouTube). Social media can be referred to in a variety of ways, often depending on which sector is discussing it. Other terms which may be used in a similar context include social software, social computing and Web 2.0 (http://www.cipr.co.uk/consultation/CIPR-SocialMediaGuidelines-Nov06.pdf).

Social media is best understood as a group of new kinds of online media, which share most or all of the following characteristics (What is Social Media? An e-book from Spannerworks – updated Nov 2007 www.spannerworks.com/ebooks 5):

Participation: social media encourages contributions and feedback from everyone who is interested in. It blurs the line between media and audience.

Openness: most social media services are open to feedback and participation. They encourage voting, comments and the sharing of information. There are rarely any barriers to accessing and making use of content – password-protected content is frowned on.

Conversation: whereas traditional media is about ‘broadcast’ (content transmitted or distributed to an audience) social media is better seen as a two-way conversation.

Community: social media allows communities to form quickly and communicate effectively. Communities share common interests, such as a love of photography, a political issue or a popular TV show.

Connectedness: Most kinds of social media thrive on their connectedness, making use of links to other sites, resources and people.

User generated media content is not a new idea. In fact, the interaction of professional media producers and their readers, listeners and viewers has a longstanding interactions (Schweiger, Quiring, 2006: 2). Letters to the editor, letters to the radio producers and television program producers, radio show callings and also the musical request calls for the music shows can be given as examples of user generated contents.

In workplace internal communication tools such as complaint or recommendation letters written to suggestion boxes, employee articles in corporate newsletters/e-zines and e-newsletters, noticeboards,

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question and answer forum on the intranet, employee speeches in motivation meetings are the premier examples of employee generated content where the media channels are controlled by the organisation.

Schweiger and Quiring determine that the creation of media content with the help of users gained importance with the advent of the new media (Schweiger, Quiring, 2006: 3). In fact, the term UGC was named for determining user contributions to the new media environment. Digital age and new media brought some changes for media users and producers to have interactions in the process of the creation of public content (Walter Von., Quiring, 2004). User generated content is connected to the concept of interactivity” says Schweiger and Quiring (2006: 17). It reflects the expansion of media production through new technologies that are accessible and affordable to the general public (Alikılıç, 2007). Employee blogs, profiles in social networking sites, videos of employees, forums, comments are types of media where employee generated content is broadcast. In digital age where information flows via social media, employee generated content will be recieved by mass audiences.

Niall Cook from Hill Knowltone communication consultancy firm used the term “Employee Generated Content” to express for the need for a blogging policy for employees (http://www.simply-communicate.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=850). He said that they proclaimed their employee blogging policy in May 2005, with the aim of helping companies trying to tread the fine line between protecting freedom of speech for staff and meeting legal and corporate governance obligations.

Basic forms of employee generated content in social media can be classified in six topics:

a. Employee blogs: The best known form of social media, blogs are online journals, with entries appearing with the most recent first. At its simplest, a blog is an online journal where the entries are published with the most recent first. Hill Knowltone had developed a blogging policy for its employees. Blogging policies and guidelines give employees how to broadcast their ideas in social media without facing any trouble related to their employers. Blogs created by employees’ real identities by giving the names of their companies are called employee blogs. Blogs are most common medium used by employees, and it has different advantages. Blogs are powerful tools that are already influencing many company’s corporate reputation. They form the part of some much wider changes taking place in online media that will increasingly affect company’s business and clients’ brands (http://www.simply-communicate.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=850). Blogs are easily monitored because author’s name and time of the post are given. Also posts can be evaluated both by comments and by a number of views. Before a company can set their formal blogging policies, they really need to think about their brand, and determine the level of public exposure. And the posts in the blog shouldn’t look like news releases coming from public relations department. Examples of employee blogs are given in the following:

- Sun Microsystems blogs are the blogs that only employees can read and write. This space is accessible to any Sun employee to write about anything. http://blogs.sun.com/. This space is created by the company and in these blogs employees are sharing information about products, processes and their social life. There are total numbers given in the entrance page; total weblogs: 4143, total users: 4656, total entries: 97029, total comments: 99600. Johnatan Schwartz told the Associated Press, “The blog has become for me the single most effective vehicle to communicate to all of our constituencies - developers, media, analysts and shareholders.” (http://www.edelman.com/news/storycrafter/uploads/NewFrontiers2006_Finalpaper.pdf)

- Southwest Airlines employee blog is called Nuts about Southwest (http://www.blogsouthwest.com/) “When we first started going to senior leadership, we positioned the blog as an extension of our brand, and at Southwest our brand is our people,” says Angela Vargo, senior specialist of business development at Southwest Airlines and co-creator of the company’s external blog Nuts About Southwest. “This is a forum for our best and major asset, our people, to communicate directly to the public. A blog is very much supposed to be an extension of a company: whatever they think, they believe, their mission. That was the selling point.” (http://www.edelman.com/news/storycrafter/uploads/NewFrontiers2006_Finalpaper.pdf)

- Microsoft community blogs: Microsoft technologies written by Microsoft employees. These blogs will provide you insights and opinions about using Microsoft technologies and software. Microsoft also

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supports employees to communicate with consumers about products (http://www.microsoft.com/Communities/blogs/PortalHome.mspx).

- Mc Donald’s Employee Blogs: To sustain strong sales and encourage communication between far-flung workers, McDonald's has launched an internal blog called Station M. The site allows the employees of its 15,000 US and Canadian stores to discuss new products and various burger-related issues. Content is provided in English, Spanish and French (Mc Donald’s Encouraged to Pen Burger Blogs, http://www.marketingvox.com/mcds-employees-encouraged-to-pen-burger-blogs-037542/?camp=newsletter&src=mv&type=textlink).

- Social Media University Global (http://social-media-university-global.org/) is a blog about social media which was generated by Lee Aase, working for Mayo Clinic as manager for syndications and social media. In his blog profile he emphasizes like that “The views here I express are my own, and do not represent those of Mayo Clinic.

- Çağlayan Arkan, CEO of Microsoft Turkey has a blog (http://caglayanarkan.spaces.live.com/). In his blog he writes articles about technology, he downloads photos taken in his conferences, business travels.

b. Social network sites: These sites allow people to build personal web pages and then connect with friends to share content and to communicate. Social networks on the web are like contained versions of the sprawling blog network. People joining a social network usually create a profile and then build a network by connecting to friends and contacts in the network, or by inviting real-world contacts and friends to join the social network. These communities retain the interest of their members by being useful to them and providing services that are entertaining or help them to expand their networks (What is Social Media? An e-book from Spannerworks, 11/2007, www.spannerworks.com/ebooks). The biggest general social networks MySpace, Facebook, Yonja.Net and famous business network is LinkedIn. When Facebook became very popular most of the companies restricted using the social network site in the workplace. Also some companies, government institutions banned their employees to have a profile in social networking sites.

In social network sites employees are creating groups and circles in order to find retired employees, colleagues from different companies. They also form forums to discuss major topics about their sector. For example in Facebook there are a lot of groups formed by reputable companies’ employees. Among these groups there are groups with interesting topics. Employees market themselves as reputable brands in social network sites, and they act like influentals who spread different issues. They sometimes look like brand ambassadors giving the message of their loyalty to their company in cyberspace.

Companies are using social network sites as a channel for recruitment and building informal employee networks. Serena Software, Inc. announced with a press release that its 800 employees around the globe will participate each week in a company-wide program called “Facebook Fridays,” which encourages employees to find fun and personal connections in the workplace. Each Friday, employees are granted one hour of personal time to spend on their Facebook profiles and connect with co-workers, customers, family and friends (http://www.serena.com/company/news/pr/sPR_11022007.html). A unique example of social network is used in Cisco. As well as encouraging its 65,000 employees to use social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, Cisco operates its own social network the Idea Zone or I-Zone for short that allows all employees to invite other employees to respond to an idea. “It’s pulling innovation up from the roots of an organization rather than expecting it to come down from above,” said Phil Smith, vice-president of technology and marketing, Cisco Europe. “The new Web 2.0 technologies are suited more collaborative environments than to organizations that operate command-and-control management.” (Learn to Love Social Network Sites, The Sunday Times, January 27, 2008). Bank employees and some of the firms in various sectors make groups to communicate with each other in favorite social network sites like Facebook and MySpace. For example HSBC Bank employees formed more than 500 groups. The most crowded one has more than 600 people.

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c. Wikis: These websites allow people to add content to or edit the information on them, acting as a communal document or database. The best-known wiki is Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia which has over 2 million English language articles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page). According to Webster’s New Millenium Dictionary a wiki is “a collaborative web site set up to allow user editing and adding content.” By allowing multiple users to contribute a central source, organizations are able to leverage their collective intelligence. Wikis are particularly useful for communications efforts that evolve and benefit from input from a diverse network of stakeholders. (http://www.edelman.com/news/storycrafter/uploads/NewFrontiers2006_Finalpaper.pdf).For example, Cisco has Ciscopedia as a collaborative reference document. Janssen-Cilag, the Australian pharmaceutical subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson originally had a static HTML intranet that was delivering little value. The firm recently replaced their intranet with a wiki (The Intranet Wiki Study, Toby Ward, 1/8/ 2007, http://www.corporatewebsite.com/articles/intranet_wiki_case_study:_janssen-cilag)

d. Podcasts: Audio and video files that are available by subscription, through services like Apple iTunes. Cisco is using podcasts to communicate with employees (http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/podcast_filter.html).

e. Forums: Areas for online discussion, often around specific topics and interests. Forums emerged long before the term ‘social media’ and are powerful and popular elements of online communities. The most dangerous employee speech may be the online forums, because employees aren’t taking part with their real identity. This nicknamed identity gives them courage to spread any kind of information. One comment in a forum may be the revenge of a recently fired employee. Unsatisfied employees can make defamation about their employers. This kind of situation might result in reputation crisis.

There are vocational forums where business professionals communicate with each other. For example; Media professional forums like www.thenewsbox.com, financial professionals forum AFP Payments Forum, logistic professionals forum www.forum.logisticstoday.com, engineer forums www.eng.tips.com. The engineer forum has 11 different types of engineering forums. In this forum people ask and answer questions about different branches of engineering. In general forums people give information and discuss about companies, employee and customer relations. In most forums people use nicknames to express themselves, but they reveal what they know about their companies. Angry or unsatisfied employees might disseminate negative information in these forums. In Turkey bank employees are sharing their opinions in a banking forum called “bankacılar.net” with their nicknames.

f. Employee generated videos: Videos created by employees are broadcast in video sites like Youtube and other media. For example CNR Expo launches new year celebration video to Youtube, Two Bank of America employees singing a reworked U2 song to celebrate an acquisition (One Bank) Bank Of America - One (U2 Cover) **HIGHER RES**. It is also easy to find Christmas Celebration Parties, Presentations in Youtube when the name of a company is written in the search engine. There might also be angry employers acting like ignored customers in videos. There are also videos about employees, workplaces, inhouse trainees in video sites. The videos seem to be shot by employees who use their nicknames.

g. Other kinds of channels: There are other kinds of employee generated channels can be named. E-mail groups messages are very popular among employees. In instant messaging ‘personel message’ written under the identity can be an example. For instance, John writes “I’m tired of working, nobody helps me” message can be interpreted as “he is tired, his employer gives him so many duties- may be he can’t get any help from his colleagues, this company isn’t a good place to work at”.

2. Employees’ Freedom of Speech

Freedom of expression is mentioned in various legislations begining from the Human Rights Decleration in 1948 to United States H.R. 275 Bill in 2007. The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948. In this declaration Article 19 is like that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any

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media and regardless of frontiers.” (http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html) The European Convention on Human Rights (which was first accepted in 1950), article 10 is as follows (http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html#C.Art10):

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary. (http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html#C.Art10)

In the words of John Barlow, a founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) "In Cyberspace, the First Amendment is a local ordinance". The principle of freedom of speech is also embedded in the Internet's robust architecture. In the words of John Gilmore, another founding member of the EFF -- "The Net interprets censorship as damage, and routes around it." Because of the Internet's robust design, it is impossible to completely block access to information except in very limited and controlled circumstances, such as when blocking access to a specific site from a home computer, or when using a firewall to block certain sites from employees on a workplace network (http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ip_speech.htm).

Employees’ content creation and dissemination was conceptualizied somewhat as Employee Voice and Representation before the invention of internet. Employee voice and representation terms are mentioned in employee relations with unions or in nonunion working models. Employee voice was just the term about productivity in the workplace. The notion of employees having a voice at the workplace was popularised in the writings of two Harvard University labour economists in the 1970s and 1980s. Freeman and Medoff (1984) argued that it was highly desirable for both the workforce and for the company to provide a voice mechanism for employees. Allowing workers a voice provided a means for the early detection of problems and for their participation in decisions that could have a potentially positive impact on productivity and quality (Gollan, 2005:233) Freeman and Medoff argue that the presence of a trade union in the workplace provides the preferred institutional arrangement for providing employees with a genuine voice at the workplace. The shift towards greater non-union employee relations has meant that if employees are to have a voice in the workplace, there needs to be alternative institutional arrangements. Consequently, many companies have attempted to introduce different forms of employee consultation and participation in order to give workers a voice (Gollan, 2005:234).

The result of employers’ power on employee speech is that employers not only have the legal ability to repress employee speech at, around, and after work, but also display all too frequently a reflexive impulse to do so. Free speech that doesn’t in any serious way jeopardize the employer’s interests is viewed as a potential threat, and these views are given far more weight than workers’ human and legal rights all around the world. Bruce Barry, in his book Speechless (2007) contends that a generally inhospitable workplace climate for a lot of free expression by employees puts workers on notice and at risk of consequences for their speech. Barry argues that not just our rights as employees, but our effectiveness as citizens—as participants in the civic conversations that make democracy work. Barry identifies six elements that relate to workplace related expressive activity (Barry, 2007):

1. Location, when speech occurs on the physical site of the employer’s workplace.

2. Time, whether the speech occurs during or after the workday.

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3. Topic, whether the speech is about the organization or about the greater world.

4. Audience, whether the speech is aimed at listeners inside the organization, or listeners who are not co-employed.

5. Compelled speech, whether the speech is freely given by the employee or compelled by the employer.

6. Association, joining groups your employer may or may not approve of.

Barry explains that now is the right time to look at free expression in the workplace for five reasons. First, “Fearing the consequences, employees develop survival instincts that make them more inclined to curry favor than to speak out about management or corporate practices.” Second, the drop in unionization of workers results in workers being unable to expect due-process protections. Third, the increase in political partnerships by corporations. Fourth, the compelling of employees to avoid words or deeds on or off the job that can undermine brand equity of the corporation. And fifth, the advent of new technology that makes it possible for employees to reach a much larger audience (www.bellaonline.com/articles/art52759.asp).

Companies have other concerns about employee speech. Restrictions on speech that are sometimes characterized as assaults on freedom of speech are classified in famous open source media, free encyclopedia Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech): defamation (slander and libel), product defamation (criticism of commercial products), obscenity, threats, lying in court (perjury), talking out of turn during a trial, or talk that causes contempt of court, speaking about a trial outside the court room after the judge forbids it (subjudicy), speaking publicly without a permit, speaking outside of a free speech zone, limits on the size of public demonstrations, profanity, hate speech that is defamatory or causes incitement to violence, noise pollution, speech that contains a copyright infringement, company secrets (trade secrets) such as how a product is made or company strategy, political secrets: campaign strategies, dirty past/deeds of a politician, etc., classified information: sensitive or secret to protect the national interest, lies that cause a crowd to panic or causes clear and present danger or imminent lawless action and others.

In most companies access to web 2.0 sites are banned. Youtube, Facebook, blogs, even hotmail and msn are banned in some companies. But today many employees, especially knowledge workers have computers, blackberries on their own. It is easy for employees to access social media during off hours, so they can find time to express themselves.

In September 2007 famous public relations author Shel Holtz launched a grass-roots campaign named Stop Blocking. The campaign comprises of a blog (for updated news and information), a wiki (for answers to the arguments in support of blocking), a petition and badges anyone can put on their own blogs or websites to support the effort. Shel Holtz argued that companys’ reasons for blocking employee access to social media are: IT departments buying into blocking software concerns or human resources departments concerns about litigation and productivity which is measured by hours spent in surfing on the social media (http://www.mediabullseye.com/mb/2008/01/should-your-employer-stop-bloc.html).

An hour-by-hour basis productivity calculation is fine for assembly line workers, but knowledge worker output is measured based on work accomplished. The assumption that there is no work value in spending time on social network sites is flawed. Being connected by Blackberries, email, and cell phones means employees are never really off the job. Employees are brand ambassadors on social sites just as they are when spending time with friends, family, and non-work peers. Other sites like wiki, youtube and podcasts provide education and information, while others allow employees to create or join networks that pay dividends when questions or issues arise that can be addressed by others in the network. For example, the question feature on LinkedIn, where a network of professional colleagues can come to your aid when you issue a query.

Infection of viruses from downloads, litigation- inappropriate employee behaviour and bandwitdth are the three arguments support companies’ no access policies. According to security company Barracuda

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Networks, two-thirds of companies plan to restrict access to the Net in 2009, an increase of nearly %23 in 2008. About half of the company’s customers already block access to social networking sites (%25 block just MySpace, %6.3 block just Facebook, and %19.3 block both). These represent just the tip of the iceberg; there are hundreds of such studies. (Holtz, http://www.mediabullseye.com/mb/2008/01/should-your-employer-stop-bloc.html).

Companies have corporate communication concerns about social media use by their employees. The most dangerous outcome of employee generated content might be the problems related with loss reputation and unexpected crisis.

3. Employees in Corporate Communication

There is a widespread belief in the management world that in today’s society the future of any one company depends critically on how it is viewed by key stakeholders such as shareholders and investors, customers and consumers, employees and members of the community in which the company resides. Public activism, globalization and recent accounting scandals have further strengthened this belief, and have also brought the work of communications practitioners into closer orbit (Cornelissen, 2005:9). Corporate communication is emerging through the convergence around fundamental business processes... such as public relations, employee communications, personnel, marketing, and quality management. While there are growing calls for the integration of communications functions, many managers seem to lack recognition of the total, holistic perspective on integrated internal and external communications (Varey, 1997). Corporate communications is a management function that offers a framework and vocabulary for the effective coordination of all means of communications with the overall purpose of establishing and maintaining favourable reputations with stakeholder groups upon which the organization is dependent (Cornelissen, 2004:23).

The marketing and sales element of corporate communication has been seen as the dominant characteristic, as Kitchen (1997) observed, “Corporate communications is seen as consisting of three potentially interactive and synergistic dimensions- public relations, marketing communications and human resource management” recognizing the central nature of corporate communication. (Goodman, 2005: 11) Recent studies confirm corporate communication as a strategic management function centered on these challenges (Goodman, 2006) are like: the need to build trust with all internal and external audiences; the expectation by the corporation to accomplish more with less; the demand to build a responsible and accountable global corporate culture in; response to a hostile environment for multinational corporations; the perception of the corporate communication executive as ‘counsel to the CEO’; and ‘manager of the company’s’ reputation; the understanding of the global impact of the local act, and the local impact of the global act; the demand for greater transparency and disclosure have made media relations more complex and strategic; the expectation that the company be a good citizen and make money; the reality of global terrorism makes crisis communication planning a critical success factor for corporate communication professionals; the understanding of transparency as a best practice strategy for reputation management; the knowledge that writing remains the core skill for corporate communication. The first challange “the need to build trust with all internal and external audiences” is pointing out the employee relations applications. If trust is built among employees and employers there would be no concern about any kind of defamation, noise pollution and other kinds of assaults. If an organisation adopts two-way symmetric communication then according to Grunig, ‘open, trusting and credible relationships with strategic employee constituencies will follow (Grunig, 1992: 559). Employees are important stakeholders whose behaviour and communication both contribute to the corporate identity and project it to external stakeholders (Tench, Yeomans, 2006: 337).

The effectiveness of external relations is related to savvy organised internal relations. Consumers count on employees of company more than the commercials. The trust barometers of Edelman proves this situation in numbers. In the Edelman 2007 Trust Barometer Report it is found that listening to employees also builds trust on consumers. According to the same report, employees are credible spokespersons as peers, friends and experts who are social connectors having the highest rate (28%) of trust holder profiles

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(http://www.edelman.co.uk/trustbarometer/files/trust-barometer-2007.pdf). In that report, it is advised that a company can engage with Social Connectors to start peer-to-peer conversations and educate consumer or advocacy groups, raise awareness around products, diseases or lifestyle trends. According to Edelman’s Trust Barometer Reports for 2006, 2007 and 2008 the credibility of regular employee of a company has a higher rate (in 2006 45% to 51%; in 2007 44% to 35%;) compared with CEO of a company (2006, 28% to 52%; 2007, 41% to 20%) (http://www.edelman.co.uk/trustbarometer/). In Edelman’s 2008 Trust Barometer press release the following highlights were given: “Social media is on the rise and, it is also more highly used and trusted by young opinion elites. Wikipedia ranks as the No. 2 source of credible information among 25-to-34-year-old opinion elites in the United States, by 55% of respondents. Across the globe, all age groups rely on credentialed experts and people like themselves for information they trust. Globally, trust in financial or industry analysts, academics, and doctors or healthcare specialists is above 50% (57%, 56%, and 55%, respectively) and trust in a “person like me” is 58%. Meanwhile, trust in CEOs continues to lag at about 20% in the United States, versus 43% for an average employee. “Companies need to be engaged at the intersection of the top-down and peer-to-peer models of communication,” said Mr. Edelman, “relying on both experts and empowered employees to supplement statements by the CEO.” (http://www.edelman.co.uk/trustbarometer)

As it is proved in the report both employees and the content in the social media are reliable. Employee generated content is the intersection of social media and employee initiative to disseminate information about him/herself or his/her company. It is visible that the messages generated by employees are credible in case they publish content by their real identities in social media.

The age of online communications has ushered in a whole new set of employee communications vehicles-formfrom e-mail to voice mail to tailored organizational intranets. Such vehicles are more immediate than earlier print versions. They reach employees at their desks and are more likely to be read, listened to, and acted on. Online communications also have the capability of reaching virtual employees at their desks, in their homes or wherever they remotely may be (Seitel, 2004: 268) . There are so many debates over the boundaries companies should set for their employees’ use of social media, and there is, as yet, no definitive answer. Organisations will always want to protect their brand against misuse or misrepresentation and also bear a certain amount of legal responsibility for employees’ actions. Being aware of the potential issues as an employer or employee means that steps can be taken to ensure these issues do not materialize. There have been many cases where employers have dismissed employees based on their use of social media. A new term has even been coined following one such case: to be ‘dooced’ is to loose your job because of something you wrote in your blog (http://www.cipr.co.uk/consultation/CIPR-SocialMediaGuidelines-Nov06.pdf )

Websites based on user-generated content, blogging or participation are frequently visited by office workers, but content security firm Clearswift's survey claims that firms are failing to see the risks of data leak posed by those sites. It found that 14.6% of the 939 business surveyed are not aware of social media and have no policy on it, while 19% of companies do not have a policy governing appropriate use of the internet by employees and, 35% of companies do not monitor employees' use of the internet, so would have no idea whether or not they were using social media sites and would not be able to trace the source of any leak on those sites (http://www.out-law.com/page-7972).

An other side of employees’social media existence is the legal responsibility of employers for their workers words. There are circumstances under which employers can be held legally responsible for their employees’ words. Situations that may apply include action taken as part of their role for the company and material published on an official company space or somewhere that has been previously sanctioned by the company. It is therefore important to make all employees aware of the potential legal issues as well as any specific company policy on engaging with social media. Giving employees clear guidelines helps both parties to understand the parameters when dealing with social media from an employment perspective (http://www.cipr.co.uk/consultation/CIPR-SocialMediaGuidelines-Nov06.pdf).

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The value of the social media (technically term web 2.0) is the ability to more efficiently generate, self-publish, and find information, plus share expertise in a way that's so much easier and cheaper than earlier knowledge management attempts. Before Web 2.0 takes its place at the business table, you must assess the risk and opportunities Web 2.0 represents — while recognizing that Web 2.0 is not going away, no matter what IT and the legal department wishes. As with any disruptive technology, assess the strategic value and implementation plans with an eye toward enterprise requirements including reliability, security, governance, compliance, and privacy (Koplowitz, Young, 2007).

In web 2.0 there are many online corporate crisis which resulted with corporate reputation defamation. Corporate Repuation is an individual's collective representation of past images of an organization (induced through either communication or past experiences) established over time (Cornelissen, 2004: 25). Grapevine, whistleblowing, posts with nicknames hidden video cameras can cause online crisis. In order to prevent online crisis names of companies, brands and employees should be monitored. Quick reactions aren’t sufficient for preventing crisis, proactive communication strategies are essential preventing both online and offline crisis. In proactive crisis management strategies employee communication has a very important role. Employee communication applications have to be developed by the light of corporate communication strategies.

3. Employee Generated Content From the Perspective of Corporate Communication

There are many corporate communication applications related to employee communication. Internal communication, internal marketing, employee branding and at last personal branding are among these applications. The corporate reputation of a company is related to well organized employee commincation applications. Internal communication is the term used to describe an organizations’ managed communication system where employees are regarded as a public or a stakeholder group. Employees are communicated by the company’s top management with through a variety of methods, including newsletters, noticeboards, staff briefings and intranets which are designed to inform employees about business (Tench, Yeomans, 2006: 334). The origins of internal communication lie in business or industrial journalism. In the UK, for example, professional recognition goes back to the formation of the British Association of Industrial Editors in 1949. Journalists were tempted by attractive salaries to write for the staff or ‘house’ journal in which a company’s news and information was published. Better informed employees who, in turn, contributed to increased productivity (Tench Yeomans, 2006: 334).

Today, smart companies realize that well-informed employees are the organization’s best goodwill ambassadors. Managements have become more candid in their communications with the staff. Gone are the days when all the news coming from the communications department was good. In today’s environment, being candid means treating people with dignity and giving them the oppurtunity to understand the realities of the marketplace (Seitel, 1990: 61).

Internal win- win relationships between employees and employer, when employees feel that they are working in a company that gives them something back such as reasonable salary, encouragement and development potential motivation and performance (Varey, 2000: 29). Internal marketing involves getting employees to love company’s brand so they, in turn, will convince customers to love it. But employees don’t automatically love their company and its brand. (Drake, 2005: 3). The purpose of internal marketing is to create employees, people whose passion for what they do erases the boundaries of service. They no longer think about their jobs as a set of specific tasks. Instead, their work involves whatever it takes to contribute to the well-being of the company (Drake, 2005: 14). Berry’s logic is that organisations need employees who are satisfied with their job products in order to have satisfied customers. Later, Berry and Parasuraman (1991: 162) cautioned that barriers to performance occur when parts of the organization act without cohesion or a unified spirit, limiting contact employees’ ability to perform. Berry and Parasuraman (1991: 151) also emphasized treating staff the way you would want them to treat customers in the expectation that this will encourage effective marketing behaviour.

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There are two steps beyond internal marketing efforts, one of them is employee branding the other one is creating brand ambassadors from employees. Employee branding is the process by which employees internalize the desired brand image and are motivated to project the image to customers and other organizational constituents (Miles, Mangold, 2004: 68). Employee branding goes beyond attaining customer satisfaction through internal marketing. It utilizes all the organizational systems, including internal marketing methods, to motivate employees to project the desired organizational image. This image is projected through their demeanor, appereance, and manner of interaction with customers (Miles, Mangold, 2004: 68). If employees internalize the desired image effectively they will project the brand name and organizational image in a desired way in all kinds of environments. Gary Grates, from Edelman emphasized the importance of the employee branding indirectly as follows: “Instead of treating employees as a captive audience, it is essential that leaders and communicators recognize them as a public constituency capable of opinionshaping, decision-making, and organizational success. When a company ignores this truth, it suffers. Employees now have the technology as well as a choice of public forums for airing their concerns. As social media and technology continue to advance, today’s management must still hold true to some basic tenets: authentic communication, relationship-building methods, and a communication style that affords open, transparent, ongoing discussion, which allows people to drive business strategy, and, most importantly, to voice opinions and suggestions that ultimately affect performance and business outcomes.” (http://www.edelman.co.uk/trustbarometer/files/trust-barometer-2007.pdf). As a result employees become employee ambassadors who are spreading information about their companies in both online and offline environments.

There is another concept related to employee communication in the perspective of corporate communication, called personal branding which is likely to affect corporate communication. Personal branding term is thought to have been first used and discussed in an 1997 article by Tom Peters (Peters, 1997:83). Personal branding is the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. It has been noted that while previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, the personal branding concept suggests instead that success comes from self-packaging. Within the personal branding movement, people and their careers are marketed as brands complete with promises of performance, specialized designs, and tag lines for success (Lair, Sullivan, Cheney, 2005). For example Rohit Bhargava who leads the interactive marketing team at Ogilvy Public Relations was honored with the Gold Personal Branding of employees Personal Brand Award for 2007 which was given by Personal Branding Magazine. He has a blog called Influental Marketing Blog with almost 4000 subscribers. (http://personalbrandingblog.wordpress.com/2007/11/04/the-2007-personal-brand-of-the-year-is-rohit-bhargava/).

In social network sites and blogs people are showing their personal brands with their profile. What they do, where they work, their professions are written in online environment. Companies who have strong brands and have personal relationships with consumers might motivate their brilliant employees to create their own personal brands. Employees working in reputable companies are carrying their employer’s brand image to their own brands.

There is a mutualism between employer-employee relations. If this relation gives benefits to both sides, corporate communication of the company and personal brand of the employee will take benefit from it. A gain-lose chart can be drawn for showing different dimensions on consequences of employee generated content from the view of employees and of employers. On the first rowcolumn employee and employer are indicated. On the second and third coloumns it is shown what will be lost in case of ignorance during the process and dissemination of employee generated content. On the fourth and the fifth columns it is marked what will be gained in case of awareness both by employees and employers. In this chart all of the discussion topics are outlined and conditions to gain from employee generated content is given.

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Figure- 1 Employee Generated Content Gain and Lose Chart

Employee

Ignorance Lose Awareness Gain

Avoid limitation, filtering, Downloading every kind of personal information,

Speaking without control,

Whistleblow,

Grapevine.

Lose time in workspace

Attacks from hackers, unwanted friends/ foreigners

Negative reaction from employers

Filter information, Controlled message dissemination,

Be in harmony with corporate communication policy,

Act in ethical manner,

Act like a brand ambassador of the company.

Expression,

Freedom of speech,

Socialization,

Carrier development oppurtunities,

Personal branding.

Employer Ban existence in social media,

Block employee access to social media sites,

Ignore all social media content related with the company,

Ignore internal corporate communication applications,

Wait and see the consequences.

Corporate reputation defamation, employee visualization in unwanted online environments,

Reaction from employees,

Bandwidth,

Litigation,

Infection.

Employee branding, employee engagement,

Internal marketing applications,

Trust employees,

See employees as brand ambassadors

Develop social media policy,

Monitor brands, names, employees of the company in social media .

Effective internal communication,

Creative employee communication,

Corporate identity existence in social media,

Using employee network to disseminate social issues of corporate communication.

Conclusion

Democracy, participation, socialization and productivity are the outcomes of the free speech of employees. Freedom of speech takes place in human rights declarations, but it is restricted in employment contracts. Companies are banning access to social media channels where employees are given freedom of speech. They are afraid of defamation, reputation crisis and other kinds of unpleasent consequences. Companies which have effective, long term internal and external corporate communication are taking benefits from employee generated content. Internal communication, internal marketing, employee branding applications will create brand ambassadors from employees.

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Engaging employees to corporate policies and trusting them may prevent to get any kind of damage from employee voice in social media. For employee engagement internal marketing and employee branding are applications which are the tasks of corporate communication departments.

Employers are afraid of defamation, bandwith, litigation and infection which causes them blocking to social media. Banning employees to social media access will not prevent employees use these channels. They can access to these channels out of workplace and unsatisfied employees can generate and disseminate negative content about the company. Giving employees clear guidelines helps both parties to understand the parameters when dealing with social media from an employment perspective. Employees’ responsibility for existing in social media will be acting in ethical manner, be in harmony with corporate communication policies.

According to trust researches both regular employees and social media content are found credible by consumers. Employee generated content is voice of one of the most credible bodies in social media channels. In further studies employee generated content credibility has to be investigated.

The benefits of employee generated content will be creative employee communication, existence in social media in different means, easily dissemination of corporate communication issues by the help of employee network. In the future other kinds of benefits can arise. But corporate names should be monitored both online and offline environment in order to prevent any kind of reputational crisis.

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Figures

Figure- 1 Employee Generated Content Gain and Lose Chart

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