Companies Block Social Media Sites

The growth of social media brings a headache for companies – do they allow access or ban it? I am a great believe – and this is an ex HR Director speaking! – that the more you ban the more you say “I don’t trust you”. I wouldn’t ban sites, I would allow this kind of communication – after all we don’t ban telephone calls, texting etc What we do do is to manage the usage….so why not social media? Another reason is that people can access from their phones anyway!

So it was interesting to see over at ScanSafe to see some more research about how companies are blocking social media

Spencer Parker states “In recent months, employers are obviously wising up to the dangers and negative impact on productivity linked to certain sites and more and more of our customers have chosen to block social networking, online banking and Webmail.”

• 20% increase in the number of customers blocking social networking sites in the last six months.
• Currently, 76% of companies are choosing to block social networking and it is now a more popular category to block than online shopping (52%), weapons (75%), alcohol (64%), sports (51%) and Webmail (58%).

• ScanSafe specifically found an increase in the number of customers choosing to block the below categories in the last 6 months.

• 28% increase in travel
• 27% increase in restaurants and bars
• 26% increase in sports
• 26% increase in online shopping
• 19% increase in Job Searches
• 16% increase in Webmail

“Social networking sites can expose businesses to malware and if not used for business purposes can be a drain on productivity and bandwidth,” says Parker. “Given the option, companies are increasingly taking a sterner approach to the sites that their employees are allowed to access.”