Think about the last time that your company had a team meeting. While you were waiting for the presentation to begin, did you grab your iPhone and quickly check your Facebook? Or, did you snap a couple group selfies with your colleagues so you could Instagram the pow-wow – maybe with a creative “hard at work” caption? As we become savvier with our tagging knowledge and photo cropping skills, are organizations paying a price? More specifically, are our smart phones making us dumb communicators?

How much does social media really cost your company?

OK, log into your Facebook account (Who are we kidding? Just click the minimized window that’s on your screen right now) – and respond back to a personal message in your inbox. That only took a few moments, right? Well, according to Mashable (“Social Media Distractions Cost U.S. Economy $650 Billion,” November 2, 2012), it might actually take you up to 23 minutes to get back on track. This same article also claims that, “your social media recreation could be costing the U.S. economy $650 billion per year — or $4,452 per company.”

Before your company bans all social media usage at work, there is also another angle to this story. According to a study by Mediabistro’s AllTwitter,“46 percent of workers say that their productivity has greatly or somewhat increased because of social media use in the office, and more than one-third (37 percent) say that they could do their job better if their organization’s management was more on-board in the use of social tools in the workplace.” (“Social Media Increases Office Productivity, But Management Still Resistant, June 26, 2013). The article goes on to say that these employees believed that social media could have a positive impact on collaboration and efficiency, but they felt that management underestimated its benefits.

So, who is right and who is wrong? Either way, what should your company do? This simple answer is that you need to make your own rulebook. If your organization thrives from social media usage and your employees’ personal Tweets and status posts help to benefit your organization, carry on. However, if you are noticing missed deadlines with all eyes glued on Facebook newsfeeds and not on spreadsheets, it’s time to set some boundaries and productivity goals.

Hashtags over handshakes?

According to a recent statistic, 40% of people spend more time socializing on social media than they do face-to-face. This has implications for the business world as well. Ask yourself these reality-check questions:

• Are you checking your smart phone during company meetings for non-related work items? (i.e. the restaurant that your friend picked for dinner)
• Have you been scanning your Facebook wall/Twitter feed during a call with your colleague, boss, or client? Even worse, did you overlook a key piece of information that now has you scrambling to make up lost time?
• Are you scheduling web conferences, phone calls, or sending emails to team members when it would be just as easy, and possibly more productive, to meet up in person?

If you found yourself grimacing (or maybe even surprised) at some of your answers, you may realize just how disconnected our plugged-in workforce has become. Even if you can see someone on screen, it doesn’t count as face-to-face time. Without being in the same space together, so much is lost in translation. A joke can go horribly wrong without context and a simple question can turn into three hours of confusing email threads. The truth is that body language remains the best cue as to how your message is being delivered and received.

Pending power failures and natural disasters, we will all continue to stay online; both in our personal and professional lives. It’s a proven way to communicate with people from all over the world, expand our influence, and grow our companies. Even so, let’s try and bring some of the focus back to personal one-on-one communication. After all, it’s kind of nice to see people. And to share a real laugh, not an LOL text message or an emoticon. #REALFacetimeRULES

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