Okay, maybe your company should, but not some of the more. . . tightly-clenched companies we’ve seen.

(Yeah, I realize we just pulled the social media equivalent of “SEX! Now that I have your attention. . .”, but this article truly is about social media.)

BL Ochman, over at the What’s Next blog, wrote a great post about why certain companies shouldn’t be on Twitter. A few reasons include “every Tweet has to be approved by Legal,” and “you are not going to respond when people direct Tweets at you.”

We see this a lot at Pro Blog Service. There are companies who want to enter the social media realm, but they shouldn’t.

With apologies to BL Ochman, here is our own list of reasons your company should not be doing social media.

1. You have to deal with Legal or Regulatory Compliance issues. Ochman may have said it, but it bears repeating. A lot. I’ve had to deal with Legal departments in the past, and at best, they’re mild annoyances. But when they feel they need to actually dictate the marketing message, they become a roadblock to everything. That’s when the Marketing Department either needs to turn control of marketing to Legal, or ask for the rights to edit and rewrite all legal briefs. Then point them to Alexander Kjerulf’s post about BMW’s latest ads about how bureaucracy sucks.

1. You don’t have the time to invest in it.We tell people all the time that you should spend at least 1 hour on social media per day. Every day. Week in, week out. Yes, you can take a break once in a while, but don’t let that break turn into a regular pattern of not doing anything. An abandoned blog or rarely-used Twitter account will wreck any social media goodwill you have gained. People will believe that you can’t stay committed to anything, whether it’s social media, or even customer service. (And yes, people do make this illogical leap, and then tell their own social networks about it.)

1. When you’re in the middle of a crisis. Let’s face it, if you find yourself smack in the middle of a crisis, you’re too late. Domino’s learned that the hard way, after some employees posted a gross-out video on YouTube on April 13. Domino’s had a YouTube video and Twitter account ready to combat the negative fallout. Two days later. That’s right, Domino’s didn’t react to this PR nightmare for nearly two business days. Long enough for 1 MILLION people to see it on YouTube. Long enough that Google searches for “Domino’s” brought mention of the video up in 5 of the first 12 results. The time to set up social media is now, before a crisis or emergency hits, not after it does. Still, better late than never, so if you find yourself embroiled in a crisis, grab the closest recent-college-grad, plunk them in the PR department, and put them in charge of your social media response.

1. You don’t want to track the ROI. Actually, this isn’t a bad thing, but measuring ROI is something we take seriously in the social media world. We measure things. We determine its effectiveness. We leave un-measurability and the “we’re just building the brand” excuses to PR and billboard companies. But not tracking the ROI often leads people to believe that 1) social media is not working, or that 2) something else resulted in the increased sales. If you want to be sure, measure it.

1. Your IT department has a stranglehold on what websites and services the entire company can use. This one isn’t a deal-breaker, but when it comes a showdown between your department and the IT department, you’d better hope IT blinks first. Most IT departments take a Theory X “if you have fun, you’re not working” view of the rest of the company, and won’t allow anyone access to anything not directly related to work or occupational torture. For example, several months ago, one state government agency’s commissioner released an important public service announcement through YouTube, yet no one in the entire 900+ person agency was able to see the video, because the IT department blocked all access to YouTube, except for the one person who was able to upload it. If you want to get past the IT roadblock, make sure you have buy-in from someone with enough authority and firepower to make IT do their bidding.

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