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Social networking site use is continuing to grow, both for personal and professional purposes. As of April 2011, the breakdown is as follows: 92 percent use on Facebook, 18 percent use on LinkedIn and 13 percent use on Twitter (source: B2B Social Media Guide, hat tip to Arik Hanson for using the stat in this post).

Regardless of the number of statistics and case studies that surface proving that the use of social media has exploded in recent years, top executives continue giving push back to employees who want to test the social media waters. From my experience working with companies from various industries, there are two main reasons why executives aren’t thrilled about employees and the company using social media: (1) They don’t understand the business value and think social media does nothing but produce unproductive employees and (2) they’re scared of the vulnerability and transparency that comes along with giving up total control when utilizing social media for business purposes.

Shel Holtz, ABC, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, led an IABC Detroit workshop on September 22 about the “wired workforce” and why employers shouldn’t block employees’ access to the Internet and social networks.

LinkedIn is broken. And it’s all our fault! For a while now, LinkedIn has been praised and panned across the social media spectrum. Some call it THE social network for business, while the social media elite (there is such a thing?) slam it for imitating Facebook and Twitter each time it rolls out new functionality. [...]

The crisis communications plans of yesteryear are due for an addendum, and without it, you’re more at risk than ever before. Most company leaders do not lie awake at night worried about the next publicity crisis that will come their way. Especially for smaller organizations, communications crises are things that happen to other people’s companies. [...]

Last week, I posted that I would be attending Brand Camp 2008, a Web 2.0-based personal branding conference at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan.  Aside from my excitement over attending an event that was going to cover two subjects I always love hearing more about, branding and social media, I was pumped to participate [...]