An Article in BRW

When Qantas invited its Twitter followers to describe a luxury inflight experience to win a gift pack, the airline presumably was seeking to repair relations strained from its grounding of the entire fleet a few weeks earlier in response to a labour dispute.

Instead it faced an almighty backlash. Within hours, thousands of angry and unimpressed customers took to the social media site to voice their views. Responses ranged from “Getting from A to B without the plane being grounded or an engine catching fire” to “More than 3 mins notice that the whole service has been grounded #QantasLuxury” to “#QantasLuxury is a massive executive bonus while your workers starve and your former customers choke”…..

To read the rest of the article go to http://www.brw.com.au/p/sections/professions/more_than_social_xSkeSQBU5dohjJWFCXQIbN

…… Blands Law general manager Vivienne Storey, says it’s smarter to embrace the technology and set the terms for its use with a tailored policy than to ban it.

“This will enable your staff to freely participate in social media but also remain clear and informed about what is acceptable on these platforms,” Storey says. “Social media is the tool. If employees are time wasting on social media, they’d be time-wasting anyway.”

Investing time and resources to ensure the policy is implemented effectively is the best course of action. “Implementation is crucial, it’s more important than the policy in some ways,” Storey says. “Employees need to have a thorough understanding of the contents of the policy and the ramifications for breaches if it is to be successful.”