I've Got Sunshine on a KLOUTY Day!

 Social scoring.  Who would have thought it would have come to this.... BUT! As marketers, we are in luck.  These social scoring platforms offer a place for brands, people, and companies to find out how influential they are and where they can improve.  They can also see where their competitors stand to give a perspective as to what they are up against.  

Answer to Questions 1&2:

I think for a large organization or a small organization I would use Klout in the same way, to measure my influence and gain insight as to how my competitors are influencing our target market.  It is important to have an idea of where your competitors stand because it puts things into perspective.  You can think you are the best in your industry, but what do the numbers say. Since you probably do not have much access to an organizations P/Ls your best bet is to look at marketshare reports.  Now we have Klout.  With the rise in usage and importance of staying connected via social media for businesses, being influential on those platforms are equally as important.   "Dane Hartzell, a chief digital strategies for Minneapolis based Bolin Marketing" stated that, "We have a project that is using influence scores for a leading global logistic supply provider.  They are actually the largest company like this in the world, but they don't have the brand recognition of some of their competitors" (Shaffer, pg. 146, 2012).  
I would use this information in either a large organization or a small one to position the organization as a leader by gathering information about the competition.  Why is the score high? Why is their score low? What platforms are they using most? At what time of day? What is the content of their messages?  All of this information can help any company large or small reposition themselves to make their organization more influential. 

Schaefer, M. (2012). Return on influence: The revolutionary power of Klout, social scoring, and influence marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Managing Employees and Social Media

Being that I work in Human Resources and have dabbled in the social media marketing department a bit, I believe that I am best equipped to answer these questions from experience and see how that pans out with our group.  With my experience in policy and handbook writing, developing social media policy should not be a gigantic hurdle for me.

My opinion on how employers should handle situations where employees are expressing negative opinions of the company via social media, would really bounce back to the policy that the employer put in place initially. Employers should be sure to cover social media usage in their handbooks and have a clear policy on how employees are expected to conduct themselves. While employers may not be able to prohibit negative comments, verbiage such as "The Company encourages use of social media, however while free to express your opinion, we strongly discourage any commentary that may risk the reputation of The Company.  We expect that if you have any questions or concerns about The Company, you will report to management immediately, so that we can investigate and take the proper steps to rectify your concerns."  Should an employee express negativity online, I think the best strategy would be to counsel the employee on their comments and find out why they feel the way they do.

I would create a social media policy that is in accordance with the  National Labor Relations Board's recommendations.
Monster.com outlines the NLRB's recommendations (2014):

• Avoid general, blanket prohibitions on any employee actions with respect to social media. This includes banning employees from talking about their job, complaining about their boss or co-workers or disparaging company policies, among others. 

• Instead of generally banning employees from revealing confidential company information or trade secrets, be specific about what employees may not reveal. While it may be okay to protect trade secrets, formulas, customer lists and technological data, the NLRB has found that employees may have the right to discuss certain aspects of their confidential employment situation (such as salaries or bonuses) via social media.  

• Give employees specific examples of inappropriate postings. Acceptable limits include prohibitions on bullying, discrimination and retaliation. Talk to a lawyer before disciplining an employee for defaming or otherwise lying about the company via social media.

• Do not restrict employees’ ability to “friend” co-workers on their personal social media pages.  

• Unless you have a legitimate and defensible business purpose as part of your social media guidelines, do not ask employees (or worse, applicants) for their social media account information or passwords.  

• Be consistent in how and when you review the social media accounts for prospective employees. 

New NLRB Guidelines for Social Media in the Workplace. (2014, January 1). Retrieved October 11, 2014, from http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/small-business/news/nlrb.aspx