I've had an opportunity to casually explore the attitudes of hundreds of large and small companies whose employees attend my full-day New Rules of Marketing seminar and my keynote speeches. In my very unscientific questioning, my guess is that about 25% of companies block employee access to YouTube, Facebook, and other social networking sites.

Twenty-five percent block access!

That is a huge number of companies that are putting their organizations at a disadvantage.

I can't tell you the names of the nanny-state dinosaurs. But you'd be amazed at some of the big names that are too scared to let people into the world of social media.

One company I can talk about is on the other side. IBM is on the forefront of embracing employee use of social media (more on IBM later in this post).

If I managed a hedge fund, I'd sell short a basket of stocks of companies that block Social Media like YouTube and Facebook and buy stock in the companies (like IBM) that encourage employee use of these new tools. (Seen IBMs stock chart recently?)

Here are some reasons given by people for their companies blocking access to sites like YouTube, Facebook, and other similar sites:

- It is a drain to productivity
- It is a security issue within the company computer systems
- People may harm the company brand should employees reveal too much information
- It is a bandwidth issue

Do you trust your employees?

I think the big thing here is trust. The reasons cited above are just an excuse. If you trust your employees, they might surprise you. But if you don't trust them, over time you end up with only the corporate dregs who don't mind working in an organization that won't let them communicate with others in the ways that people are using today, like Facebook, YouTube and the like.

Ultimately, I think the HR and legal people are naive and scared and since they don't understand social media, they just slap on controls.

My friend Dianna Huff recently conducted a survey How Workers Access YouTube. She learned that two-thirds of people in companies watch YouTube videos while at work. Of those, about 40% watch YouTube videos for both business and personal reasons. However, more than 80% of people watch YouTube videos at home (sometimes that is the only way because they are blocked at work). I've had people tell me that when they find a work-related video, they need to email the link home and watch it there. Read Dianna's blog post and download her research How Workers Access YouTube for details.

Do you allow employees to have email at work?

It's been fascinating to both observe and participate in the debate about social media in the enterprise. Just like the hand-wringing over personal computers entering the workplace in the 1980s, and also echoing the Web and email debates of the 1990s, company executives seem to be getting their collective knickers in a twist about social media now. Remember when executives believed email might expose a corporation to its secrets being revealed to the outside world? Do you remember when only "important employees" were given computers and email addresses? How about when people worried about employees freely using the public Internet and all of its (gasp!) "unverified information"?

It seems silly now to forbid employees to have access to email. Yet is the exact same debate and using exactly the same language as a decade ago.

On one side of the corporate fence, the HR geniuses and the legal eagles are worried about secrets being revealed and time being wasted by their employees while using social media, creating content or commenting on social media sites. Corporate nannies want to make certain that their naive charges don’t get into trouble in the big scary world of information.

Well, duh; we're talking about people here. Employees do silly things. This debate should be centered on people, not technology.

My recommendation to organizations is simple. Have guidelines about what you can and cannot do at work, but don't try to make a specific set of social media guidelines. I'd suggest implementing corporate policies that say (for example) that employees can't sexually harass anyone, that they can't reveal secrets, they can't use inside information to trade stock or influence prices, and they shouldn't talk ill of the competition in any way or via any media. The guidelines should include email, using social media, commenting on online forums and chat rooms, and other forms of communication. Rather than focus on putting guidelines on social media (the technology), it is better to focus on guiding the way people behave.

IBM Social Computing Guidelines

IBM has developed a set of social media guidelines for employee us of blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds and social media that I think are just fantastic.

From the guidelines: "Whether or not an IBMer chooses to create or participate in a blog, wiki, online social network or any other form of online publishing or discussion is his or her own decision. However, emerging online collaboration platforms are fundamentally changing the way IBMers work and engage with each other, clients and partners." GREAT. This is the way of the future. Hat tip to IBM.

My advice for bosses is to follow the IBM example.

Do you work for a company that blocks access?

If you're an employee who works for a company that blocks access, I suggest you send them this blog post and encourage them to read my other posts and my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR.

If they still refuse to open up, I suggest you quit your job and work for a company that embraces the new world. You'll need to find a new job at some point anyway, because your company won't be around in a few years as the smarter competitors take away your business by reaching buyers using social media.

Nearly every time I give a speech someone says: "But my buyers aren't online. My buyers don't use Google to find answers to problems or to research products."

When I hear this question, I immediately think that the questioner is just fearful of social media and is making an excuse so they can stick to the traditional marketing they've done all along like billboards, yellow page ads, and direct mail.

Some excuses (markets purported to not be online) I've heard recently include:
- people who donate money to humanitarian non-profits
- government agency workers
- senior executives at large companies.

I always say: "Nonsense! These days everyone is online. Executives use Google, government workers read blogs, people who donate money watch YouTube videos. And even if they don't go online at work, they do at home. Stop making excuses and reach your buyers in the way they want to be reached."

But I was wrong.

Today I am giving a keynote at a conference sponsored by Gulf Marketing Review Magazine in Riyadh, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Yesterday, in the outskirts of Riyadh, I finally found a market that really isn't online. I shot a short video in the middle of a raging sandstorm to explain. So I apologize and stand corrected. I'll now admit that not all buyers are using the Web.

If you're selling camels at the Riyadh camel market, then keep marketing the same old ways.

But if you're not selling camels in Riyadh, then you need to stop making excuses and implement ways to reach your buyers directly with great online content.

NOTE: Here is a direct link to my video Do You Sell Camels? on YouTube

People often ask me about search engine optimization. In particular, many ask what search engine marketing techniques they can use on their site to "get high rankings."

Inevitably with most of these requests, I find that the site that they want optimized sucks. It's poorly written. It goes on and on in an egotistical way about what the company's products do. It's filled with gobbledygook.

I tell these people that they need to understand buyers and create some great content that people want to consume. That way, they will get high rankings as the search engine algorithms reward the great content.

Usually I get pushback. People say they just want to an agency to "tweak our existing Web pages."

"Sorry," I say. "Search Engine Optimizing a crap-filled site just makes it less crappy." And I go on to give examples of how valuable Web content drives high rankings.

I’m amazed by how some interesting content (a blog post, an ebook, or a web page) can generate high rankings for a tiny company, way above the big famous organizations.

Consider these examples from my own efforts:

A few months ago, I did a blog post about my participation at the Milken institute global conference. This is a big event (over 3,000 people attend), it has been going on for more than a decade, is covered by the business TV networks like FOX Business and Bloomberg as well as dozens of magazines and newspapers, and speakers include Nobel prize winners. This year Arnold Schwarzenegger and Google CEO Eric Schmidt were some of the speakers. Yet my little blog post is on the top page of the search results for the phrase Milken institute global conference.

Early this year I published The New Rules of Viral Marketing ebook. Prior to putting out the ebook, my site and blog were ranked way down in the results for the phrase viral marketing. Now, because of an ebook that has been downloaded 150,000 times, my site and my blog are ranked numbers 11 & 13 out of 4.8 million hits.

My content is ranked number one for the phrase online media room out of 17 million hits.

High search engine rankings are not a result of manipulation. They are a result of excellent content.

As many readers of this blog know, I am a huge fan of humor in corporate videos and am particularly fascinated with large, well-known technology companies that can poke fun at their business.

So it is with pleasure that I introduce you to a new Web sitcom video series debuting this week from Cisco. I have high hopes for this to be as good as the classics of the genre such as Greg the Architect from Tibco.

Follow Don DeLay, a well-intentioned and affable guy whose basic efforts to communicate are hindered by his misguided technology choices. The knuckleheaded Don selects a cheap internet provider and that may just unwind his marriage. Don and his wife Rhonda really want their marriage to work and are seeking professional help.

Here is the "Disconnected Life" Web Sitcom homepage

Here are some direct YouTube links
Meet Don DeLay
Meet Rhonda DeLay
Webisode #1

My newest book Tuned In: Uncover the extraordinary opportunities that lead to business breakthroughs hits stores in early July.

I wrote Tuned In with two other authors: Phil Myers and Craig Stull from Pragmatic Marketing. It was fun to apply our different (yet complimentary) perspectives to the writing process, creating a book that's much more than any one of us could have written

We came together to create Tuned In because we see a tremendous need in the marketplace for a book dealing with aspects of the marketing process, including:
- how to identify the problems in the market that an organization can solve,
- how to develop products and services that resonate,
- and how to communicate directly to buyers without advertising and without mainstream media.

Ultimately the Tuned In approach leads to products and services that people want to buy, generating much greater success for companies as well as nonprofits, entrepreneurs, and other organizations.

We also wrote the book because we see so many people guessing at what buyers need. Countless organizations fail because they waste time and money building, marketing, and selling products and services the market just doesn’t value.

We've identified the main reasons for failure in the marketplace such as a blind focus on innovation (for innovation's sake) and a reliance on "missionary sales" and expensive advertising to "educate the market." We share our research in the book and debunk the myths around about why these approaches almost always lead to failure.

Tuned In is a departure for me in that I worked with co-authors (a first for me) and because we talk about building products (Craig and Phil specialties). But a major focus is communicating value to buyers once products are built (my specialty).

Just like my most recent book The New Rules of Marketing & PR, we use stories and examples of success throughout to educate and inform readers.

In Tuned In you'll meet people behind such innovative organizations as:
- Zipcar, a membership-based car-sharing company targeted at under-served city-dwellers and college students who drive infrequently but regularly
- GoPro, which developed a camera for surfers that attaches to your wrist
- Boeing, which has just developed a 787 Dreamliner jet with market-driven enhancements that they expect customers will spend much more for
- Dr. Eleanor "Connie" Mariano, who built a successful practice treating every patient like the President of the United States
- Steve Cohen, who went from being a typical magician doing birthday parties to the millionaires' magician commanding huge fees.

Free advance copies of Tuned In for bloggers and podcasters!

[UPDATE (June 4, 2008): The free advance copies are all gone. But you can still pre-order a book on Amazon or BN. Thanks!]

Our publisher, John Wiley & Sons, has provided us with 100 advance copies of Tuned In to send to the first 100 bloggers who request a copy. If you think your audience might be interested in Tuned In, we'd like to send you a copy. Of course, it is totally up to you if you use our stuff. There is absolutely no obligation whatsoever.

If you're a blogger or podcaster, receive your copy before the book is available in stores by following this link to send us your information.

We're available for short interviews as well. Contact us here.

Members of the "mainstream media" can also get copy of Tuned In by using this link.

Tuned In is available for pre-order here.

Phil, Craig and I hope that you enjoy the book!