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layoffs, budget woes, product flaws, or upcoming mergers. It’s not just information leakage,
either. Employees may install unauthorized apps that deliver content using SM that bypasses
existing security measures. Or worse, they may use their corporate password at less secure
SM sites.
Second, employees may inadvertently increase corporate liability when they use social
media. For example, suppose a coworker regularly looks at SM content with questionable sexual
content on his or her own smartphone. The organization could be slapped with a sexual harass-
ment lawsuit. Other organizations may face legal issues if employees leak information via social
media. Schools, healthcare providers, and financial institutions must all follow specific guide-
lines to protect user data and avoid regulatory compliance violations. Thus, tweeting about
students, patients, or customer accounts could have legal consequences.
Finally, increased use of social media can be a threat to employee productivity. Posts,
tweets, pins, likes, comments, and endorsements all take time. This is time employers are pay-
ing for but not benefiting from. Forbes notes that 64 percent of employees visit non-work-related
Web sites each day. Among the SM sites that are most detrimental to employee productivity are
Tumblr (57 percent), Facebook (52 percent), Twitter (17 percent), Instagram (11 percent), and
SnapChat (4 percent). 43
From an employee’s point of view, you might think a little lost productivity is OK. But
imagine you’re the employer or manager, which hopefully you’ll be at some point. Would
you mind if your employees spend their days using SM to look for another job, chat with
friends, or look at vacation pictures when your paycheck is tied to their productivity? What if
SM is being used for interoffice gossip that creates HR problems, morale issues, and possible
lawsuits? Smart managers will understand that, like any technology, SM comes with both
benefits and costs.

Q8 2025?

So much change is in the air: social media, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0. Is there an Enterprise 3.0
around the corner? Will social media become more unified on a single platform or become
more fragmented across many different platforms? We don’t know. However, new mobile de-
vices with innovative mobile-device UX, coupled with dynamic and agile information systems
based on cloud computing and dynamic virtualization, guarantee that monumental changes
will continue to occur between now and 2025. (See Figure 8-13.)
Organizations like Harvard, Microsoft, and Starbucks are concerned enough with SM that
they have hired Chief Digital Officers (CDOs), a position responsible for developing and manag-
ing innovative social media programs. 44
Advance the clock 10 years. You’re now the marketing manager for an important new prod-
uct series for your company . . . the latest in a line of, say, intelligent home appliances. How are
you going to promote your products? Will your machines do SM with family members? Will
your refrigerators publish what kids are eating after school on the family’s social media site? And
what even more creative ideas will you need to have by then?

43 Cheryl Conner, “Who Wastes the Most Time at Work,” Forbes, September 7, 2014, accessed June 24, 2014, www.
forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/09/07/who-wastes-the-most-time-at-work/.
44 Jennifer Wolfe, “How Marketers Can Shape the Chief Digital Officer Role,” CMO.com, March 21, 2013, accessed
June 21, 2014, www.cmo.com/articles/2013/3/20/how_marketers_can_shape.html.