By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — Free or inexpensive social media may seem a godsend for businesses to get out the message about their products to customers – and in the case of cooperatives, also to members. In fact, co-ops with lower budgets and more accountability to member-owners may really like services such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr and others.

“Social media is like calling all my friends at once” is an acquaintance’s quote that David Cain used to describe its appeal, while talking at last week’s Indiana Cooperative Summit in Indianapolis.

Cain is president of MediaSauce, a media company based in Carmel, Ind. He and Ice Miller partner Michael Wukmer, a business attorney, switched back and forth on an hour-long program to show co-op managers the “sweet and sour” of social media.

Sweet: Cain told of an e-mail marketing campaign MediaSauce did for a client. Out of 4,500 e-mails sent, only 200 recipients actually opened them; to help, Cain also posted the campaign to his Facebook page. Within minutes, 25 of his online “friends” had commented and signed the petition.

If he had asked his staff to do the same on their own personal Facebook pages, Cain wondered how many more signers his company could have netted for the client.

Sour: That would certainly boost volume, Wukmer agreed. But if employees talk about their work on their personal blogs, what will they say? Will they accidentally disclose confidential client information? Create liability for their employer by chatting online with customers?

“Invariably, in every case I have, the best piece of evidence I find is always in somebody else’s e-mail account,” Wukmer said, explaining a carelessly-worded e-mail or one sent to the wrong person can be used against a person or business later.

He also pointed out employers worry how much time their workers spend online on the job, checking personal accounts. It could be hard to differentiate whether an employee is checking Facebook for responses to the work campaign they posted about, or for personal messages.

Sweet: “People believe people, not companies,” Cain said. The personal endorsement is about the highest level of success a business can realize in selling itself.

And, social media is just another mode of introduction and endorsement by customers – electronic word-of-mouth.
Sour: The irony of social media, Wukmer said, is while it is personal communication, what does anybody really know about the real person behind an online persona – and their endorsement? Companies pay people all the time to endorse their products, he said; some have even created dummy websites to praise their own products and trash-talk competitors.

In December 2009, he said the Federal Trade Commission revised its guidelines to prohibit false online endorsements and eliminate dummy sites and anonymous blogs and sites. It now requires businesses and endorsers to disclose if any goods or payment has changed hands in exchange for the recommendation.

Sweet: There are online programs that allow a person or business to receive “alerts” via e-mail or text message if they are mentioned in sites a search engine can find. Google, for example, has such alerts. This is a good way, Cain said, to stay on top of what is being said about one’s product in cyberspace.

“People talk about other people,” he said – just like they always have. “They connect (one-to-one), but they talk about other people, too.”

Sour: Wukmer explained there are “gripe sites” online for people to complain about everything under the sun, from jobs to bosses to stores, to airlines. The trick for a business is knowing when and how – and if – to respond.

For example, if a business wishes to address someone’s claim of being cheated or mistreated, he advised taking the matter to the business’ own site rather than engaging in debate on someone else’s forum. Also, he said there are limits to what a business can demand be taken offline – if intellectual property belonging to a business is being used without permission, it has a legal right to demand its removal.

Sweet … or sour? Social media is pervasive; it’s everywhere, Cain pointed out. It’s become part of a lot of people’s everyday lives, and it’s easy for just a few Web-savvy users to spread a message (he referred to President Obama’s campaign website in 2008 as a prime example). It can also be addictive, especially with the ability to receive messages and surf the Web on easy-to-carry smart phones.

“The light is always on, and it’s hard to remember who’s getting it,” he said of one’s message posted online.

Wukmer said for employees and potential hires, the Internet can be a hindrance if they’re not careful. Businesses are using it more and more to look up personal blogs from people applying for jobs or already employed by them – and they are making hiring and firing decisions based on what they find.

His best Internet-use advice to both workers and their employers, including co-ops: “Be careful.”