As a strong advocate for the use of social media in business, you are pleased by how quickly people in your company have taken up blogging, wiki writing, and other new-media activities. You are considerably less excited by the style and quality of what you see in the writing of your colleagues. Many seem to have interpreted “authentic and conversational” to mean “anything goes.” Several Twitter users in the company seem to have abandoned any pretense of grammar and spelling. A few managers have dragged internal disagreements about company strategy into public view, arguing with each other through comments on various industry-related forums. Production demonstration videos have been posted to the company’s YouTube channel virtually unedited, making the entire firm seem unpolished and nprofessional. The company CEO has written some blog posts that bash competitors with coarse and even crude language. You pushed long and hard for greater use of these tools, so you feel a sense of responsibility for this situation. In addition, you are viewed by many in the company as the resident expert on social media, so you have some “expertise authority” on this issue. On the other hand, you are only a first-level manager, with three levels of managers above you, so while you have some “position authority” as well, you can hardly dictate best practices to the managers above you.

Your task: 

Working with two other students, write a post for the company’s internal blog (which is not viewable outside the company), outlining your concerns about these communication practices. Use the examples mentioned above, and make up any additional details you need. Emphasize that although social media communication is often less formal and more flexible than traditional business communication, it shouldn’t be unprofessional. You are thinking of proposing a social media training program for everyone in the company, but for this message you just want to bring attention to the problem.