Interesting post by Luke at OutSocialTimes (who I’ll be meeting shortly at Monitoring Social  Media 09, in 10 days) on why some companies should Not Use Social Media - and it ties into another thought that is seemingly unrelated, but not.

Luke poses a question I find interesting -

…. does the character (or “brand”) of a company dictate how successful it is likely to be in social media? Does a laid-back, fun-loving, youthful company stand a better chance of success on Facebook, Twitter and the like than an ancient, grey, corporate monolith?

Yes, it’s true.  Some companies take so long to respond, are so uptight, that Social Media is too hard for them to be active with – and Luke says as much..

… some large corporates have such torturous processes and regulations that it takes at least  48 hours for a Tweet to be approved by the lawyers – if indeed it is approved! This would make for rather stilted conversations, to say the least. In my experience the unwillingness for companies to free up staff and allow them to engage with customers via social media is subsiding – but there are undoubtedly still a large number of bosses who don’t “get” social media and shudder at the thought of their IT Support guy talking to customers.

But the question goes deeper than mere attitudes. Should the ethos of a company preclude it from engaging in social media? Or, put another way, are some companies so dowdy and uncool that encountering them on Facebook would feel like getting a friend request from your dad?

Yes, again.

However, there’s a role for a Public Relations Agency, in such cases, if I ever saw one.   With proper setup, a PR Agency can do for a large, conservative brand, what they can’t do for themselves  – but, the problem is that it would be expensive for a PR firm to do regular tweeting for Corporate Behemoth.  Something in between needs to evolve – but yes, there is a middle way – and it has only barely been explored.

On another note – Joe Taplin, over at TPMCafe, points out, in a post called The New Normal, that the 80% – 20% rule applies to labor and the employment report.

… What if some version of the Pareto Principle begins to apply itself to employment–20% of the workers produce 80% of the GDP? Dan Greenhaus of Miller Taback & Co has the grim reality of our future.

We have argued and continue to argue that another jobless recovery is materializing and if our estimates for G.D.P. growth going forward materialize, the unemployment rate will remain at elevated levels for several years. Nearly 16 million people are unemployed right now while another 9 million are working part-time jobs because they cannot get a full-time job.

Furthermore …

So here is the reality of life for the bottom 40% of America’s families. After they pay for food, housing and transportation they have $1200 per year to spend on “discretionary items” like clothing, medicine and doctors. Never mind telephone, Internet or cable TV which are supposed to be middle class entitlements. I don’t believe the 25 million underemployed people in this country are not going to sit on their hands passively zoned out in front of the TV set in the next two years, especially when they see Hedge Fund managers taking home $100 million bonuses for successfully taking down companies like Abitibi-Bowater, CIT, General Growth Properties, Six Flags and even General Motors with their brilliant government subsidized Credit Default Swaps and bond packages that forced the companies into bankruptcy.

Here’s how I think Luke’s earlier question about Social Media for Companies ties into Jon’s somewhat enlightening but depressing thoughts about the economy and future job prospects and disposable income.

It may be that only 20% of the companies or businesses can take advantage of Social Media – and will create 80% or 90% of the buzz.  That’s the tie in – all this talk about the production economy, all this talk about Social Media – but who is really positioning for the 20% – and that’s the paradox of it – of all of it … that much of the buzz and future, for labor, is directed at a much smaller number than what we need for the future.

This is the paradox of the future – what is needed is a much wider adoption than what we’re currently seeing.