Social Networking Web Sites and FM
Camilla Berens—24 January 2008
To research this feature, I had to fight against my Luddite tendencies and sign up to some social networking sites to see what all the fuss is about. The results were disappointing. After hours of searching one site, I could only find a handful of people I knew—and all of whom I’d gladly lost touch with years ago. After two weeks on the second site, only three people had asked me to be their friend. The first person looked like Satan, the second resembled George, the pink hippo from Rainbow, and the third appeared to have a bottom where their head should have been. Evidently I have some way to go but it seems that the more techno savvy (and less intolerant) have not only mastered the social niceties of e-networking but are beginning to bring it into their business lives as well.
| “These days you’re just as likely to come across an FM firm on Facebook as a friend or business contact.” |
The recent development of more interactive websites, know as Web.2, has meant that the popularity of online social networking has gone stratospheric. There are now more than 100 social and special interest sites around the world covering everything from clubbing and dating to Christianity and genealogy. There’s even an invitation-only site for the European jet-set.
Wake up call
In the US, sites specifically designed to cater for the business community have been appearing over the past five years and word has gradually been spreading to Europe and the Far East. One of the most popular, LinkedIn, now claims to have 16 million users, covering 150 industries and 400 economic regions. Other sites like XING and Ziggs are not far behind. With several different business networking sites now on offer, the global business community is waking up to the potential of e-networking for recruitment, recommendations and technical knowledge sharing.
Last summer’s flurry of news stories about companies barring employee access to social networking sites appears to have heightened UK interest considerably. The FM sector is no exception. In response to the media coverage, the marketing team at Drivers Jonas made a point of setting up a “group” presence for employees on Facebook.
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“One of the company’s core values is openness and sharing and we wanted to show that we’re a forward-looking, progressive company,” says PR and communications associate Sue Gibson. Drivers Jonas’ group site is an open forum for existing and past employees but it also acts as a showcase for the company itself. “We thought it would be particularly attractive to potential graduate employees,” Gibson continues. “The company organises a lot of team activities and Facebook is a good way of showing that there’s a lighter side to working for it.”
Drivers Jonas it not alone. These days, you are just as likely to come across an FM firm on Facebook as a friend or business contact. While sites like MySpace may still attract a mainly teenage, music-orientated community, Facebook’s thirty-something user base has become an ideal platform for companies to show they’ve got their finger on the electronic pulse. Some groups are more active than others but you’ll find everyone from Johnson Controls with 243 members and Rentokil Initial with 124 members to Dalkia with 95 members and Carillion with three.
The Young Managers’ Forum (YMF) has also established a presence on Facebook to broaden its reach and has attracted 10 new members in the first few months. “We’re aiming at young FMs in the industry who want to get involved and we wanted to come across as accessible and not stuffy,” says the YMF’s Facebook group manager, Maryanna Camillieri.
Initially a marketing tool, Camillieri believes the YMF’s presence on sites like Facebook could also provide a useful platform for job hunters. “Forum members already circulate CVs to each other so our Facebook group could be an extension of this,” she says.
The YMF is now planning to go one step further and set up a presence on LinkedIn and Plaxo (the latter being more of a self-updating address book than a networking site). Camillieri also points out that individuals could use on-line FM networks for recommendations and knowledge sharing. “Although you’d have to bear in mind that this might attract negative comments as well,” she adds.
| ”The Luddites among us won’t be able to sit on the fence much longer: everyone will have to join the e-networking revolution.” |
This is a good point. Companies using networking sites for PR purposes need to be prepared to take the rough with the smooth. One disgruntled customer has already set up a Facebook group called, “We Hate Carillion”.
In this case, e-democracy seems to have presented a pretty balanced response. The site has attracted comments from only two people, one who offered a scornful comment about Carillion employees and the other, from a bid administrator, who said he “couldn’t have asked to meet a nicer bunch of people”.
Keeping track
It’s not only the younger FMs who are getting connected either. Even 50-somethings such as FM consultant Martin Pickard are e-networking. Pickard recently made a bid to raise the profile of the FM sector with a Facebook group called “I’m a facilities manager and I’m proud.”
Pickard points out that there are an estimated 177,000 FMs in the UK and most don’t belong to any type of FM organisation. “The role of the FM can be a lonely one,” he explains. “Often, if they’re working for a medium-sized company, they’ll be the only FM manager in the business,” he continues.
“For them to meet and network with other FMs is really important—for everything from swapping phone numbers, to finding out who’s a good cleaning contractor or just to have a grumble about the fact that your finance director doesn’t understand you.”
Within three weeks, the group had 58 members. But Pickard speaks volumes when he says that although the group has attracted interest from as far away as Australia and Trinidad, nobody’s quite sure what to do with it.
This seems to be the current state of play. Most businessbased networking groups are simply being used as a PR tool for companies or for employees of large firms to keep in touch with colleagues in other offices or regions. Even in these groups, the conversation rarely extends beyond general social banter or an opportunity to share photos. Constructive knowledge sharing is still thin on the ground.
However, there seems to be more business-focused activity by individuals working in the FM sector. According to Simon Ball, a business development manager with Interserve, interest in the business networking site LinkedIn has snowballed in recent months. “I first joined LinkedIn in 2004 but found only a few people and didn’t use it again,” he explains. “I started to get more individual contacts recently and it’s really starting to pick up.”
LinkedIn in now an essential part of Ball’s communications kit. “Sales and marketing is especially important in the FM sector and LinkedIn is a useful tool for me,” he explains. “People move jobs quite a lot so it’s a useful way of keeping track of my contacts.”
LinkedIn’s format essentially allows users to create their own online CV. This makes it great terrain for headhunters. “I’m already being headhunted once or twice a week because there’s such a small pool of talent,” Ball continues. “It’s hard to tell what will happen next in terms of business networking sites but there’s a lot of potential for recruitment, sales and consultants. They could claim it and shape it. It’s the users who create the content.”
E-revolution
It may still be early days but e-networkers are already facing several dilemmas. The merging of social activity with business life online has thrown up the problem of how to avoid professionally embarrassing situations. FM consultant Lucy Jeynes checks her Facebook page every morning to make sure her friends haven’t posted anything that might be deemed “unprofessional”.
| Becoming popular with FM e-networkers | |
| Ecademy | Running since 1998 and claims to have 170,000 members worldwide |
| Viadeo | European business network claiming to have almost two million members |
| Claims to have four million users in 190 countries | |
| Ziggs | Provides personal internet branding |
| Ryze | Mainly for business entrepreneurs |
| Yahoo! Kickstart | Matches US college students with employers |
| Salesconx | Exclusively for sales professionals and small business owners |
| Visible Path | Creates bespoke networking sites using algorithms |
| Doostang | Invitation-only career community |
“LinkedIn is a great site because it has a clear market position,” she says. “But there’s nothing to stop a client checking me out on Facebook as well. There’s now a big question over where you draw the line between your personal and professional identity,” she continues. “I think sites will evolve to differentiate personal and professional information in the same way as in the work environment where there are only a certain number of people you’d want to bring back to your house.”
The amount of detailed personal information being shared on social networking sites also makes them a possible target for ID theft. Some sites ask users to display key personal data such as home address, contact numbers and date of birth (often used to confirm a person’s identity). Last August, IT consultancy Sophos published research showing that 41 per cent of Facebookers divulged personal information to a complete stranger—in this case a small plastic frog called Freddie Staur. Martin Pickard points out that a lot of personal details can already be found on company websites, particularly if you’re a consultant. “There’s no point in being paranoid but it’s a public place, so you have to think of it in that way,” he adds.
However in general Pickard is optimistic about the future of e-networking. “It’s at the chaotic phase while it works out where it’s all going,” he says. “Just look at the internet. It was started by a few geeks and freaks and now everyone does their shopping on it.” If Pickard is right, the Luddites among us won’t be able to sit on the fence much longer: everyone will have to join the e-networking revolution if they want to keep up with the competition.
Camilla Berens is a freelance journalist
