Stephen Baker discusses some of the possible issues in an article in Business Week: “Beware Social Media Snake Oil“.  As he says,

Employees encouraged to tap social networking sites can fritter away hours, or worse. They can spill company secrets or harm corporate relationships by denigrating partners. What’s more, with one misstep, one clumsy entrée, companies can quickly find themselves victims of the forces they were trying to master. Thousands of bloggers attacked Motrin last year because of an advertisement from the Johnson & Johnson brand they found demeaning to mothers.

I don’t really agree that employees will “fritter away hours”, but he does have a good point about the need to be careful about the kind of information that is put out.

In a related article “Is social business worth your time?” on the Harvard Publishing blog, Morten Hansen makes a point that might seem obvious, but is often forgotten in the rush to embrace new techniques and methods:

Social media tools are only useful for some problems. Managers need to ask, do social media tools solve my key challenges?

As well as as communicating externally, organizations should be looing at different ways of using social networking tools for internal communication.  Again, it’s a question of choosing the correct tool. Employees in a high-tech company might be interested in the boss’ tweets, whereas such a tool would not be so well regarded by the staff at a more culturally conservative organization.

Social networking tools are not a panacea for all communication needs, but the right tool, used in the right way, can perform a very useful function.

During all kinds of change initiative it is important to keep staff members informed at all times. They should be told before the change starts why the change is happening at that particular time. Then while the change process is unfolding, they ought to be kept up to date with the progress of the change. Tell them what challenges are being encountered, and how these are being addressed.

Then when the change process is over, let them know how the goals of the change are being met. And if they are not being met, say what you’re going to do about it.