So, we asked our 3,423 attendees to text us the answer to the following question:

What ONE word would you use
to describe social media in today’s workplace?

We received a total of 123 different answers expressing wildly divergent opinions about SM. Some love it. Some hate it. Very few are in-between.

The most frequent response — “necessary” — shows just how quickly SM has become indispensable to many in the workplace. However, the fact that three of the top five answers were “distracting,” “dangerous” and “scary” indicates that SM isn’t exactly embraced by everyone.

Here were the most frequent responses:

• necessary (35)
• distracting (17)
• dangerous (10)
• helpful (8)
• scary (8)
• growing (6)
• wasteful (6)
• annoying (5)
• complicated (5)
• essential (5)
• overwhelming (5)
• time-consuming (5)
• useful (5)
• valuable (5)
• crazy (4)

To help keep SM from becoming an annoying, wasteful, dangerous, crazy, scary distraction in your workplace, check out our free sample social media policy.

Here’s the complete list in alphabetical order for your reading pleasure. If you’ve got one you’d like to add, feel free to comment below. As always, thanks for your participation!

• abused (1)
• addictive (3)
• annoying (5)
• awesome (2)
• bad (1)
• battlefield (1)
• beneficial (1)
• busy (1)
• caution (1)
• challenging (2)
• chaos (1)
• complex (1)
• complicated (5)
• conflicting (1)
• confusing (2)
• connected (1)
• connective (3)
• convenient (1)
• crap (1)
• crazy (4)
• creative (1)
• critical (2)
• crucial (1)
• cumbersome (1)
• dangerous (10)
• discriminatory (2)
• disruptive (1)
• distracting (17)
• drama (1)
• effective (2)
• efficient (1)
• emerging (1)
• encompassing (1)
• engaging (1)
• essential (5)
• evil (1)
• evolving (1)
• excessive (4)
• exciting (2)
• expectations (1)
• exploding (1)
• frequent (1)
• frighten (1)
• frustrating (1)
• fun (2)
• gossip (1)
• great (1)
• growing (6)
• happening (1)
• hassle (1)
• headache (1)
• helpful (8)
• iffy (1)
• imperative (2)
• impersonal (2)
• important (2)
• inclusive (1)
• increasing (1)
• indispensable (1)
• inefficiency (1)
• informative (2)
• innovation (4)
• interesting (4)
• invaluable (3)
• invasive (1)
• liability (1)
• litigious (1)
• mandatory (1)
• maturing (1)
• misused (2)
• necessary (35)
• needed (1)
• networking (2)
• new (1)
• non-productive (3)
• norm (1)
• nuisance (1)
• opportunity (1)
• overrated (2)
• overused (1)
• overwhelming (5)
• passive (1)
• pervasive (2)
• popular (2)
• powerful (2)
• prevalent (1)
• problematic (1)
• progressive (1)
• prolific (1)
• questionable (1)
• rampant (4)
• ramped (1)
• real-time (1)
• relevant (2)
• required (3)
• risky (4)
• sad (1)
• saturation (1)
• scary (8)
• secretive (1)
• stressful (1)
• time-consuming (5)
• tool (3)
• trendy (2)
• tricky (2)
• trouble (4)
• ubiquitous (1)
• unclear (1)
• uncontrollable (1)
• unethical (1)
• unfocused (1)
• unique (1)
• unmanageable (1)
• unnecessary (2)
• unproductive (3)
• useful (5)
• valuable (5)
• vital (1)
• volatile (1)
• wasteful (6)
• widespread (1)
• wrong (1)

In last week’s webinar, we asked our 3,423 viewers a series of questions to see how you’re really using social media.

Here was our first question …

More than two-thirds (67%) now use a SM tool. That’s a slight dip from last quarter’s 71% (the highest ever in our quarterly index) but still up quite a bit over the previous quarter’s 58%.

That led to our next question …

This is where things got a little surprising. After reigning as the undisputed heavyweight SM champion in every one of our quarterly indices going back to the beginning of time, Facebook (26%) appears to have suddenly stumbled to fall behind LinkedIn (51%) as the go-to tool in the business world.

Also interesting was the fact that in only two months on the Index, Google Plus has jumped from nothing to a fairly substantial 18%. Much of that appears to have come at the expense of Facebook. (As you’ve probably noticed, there’s quite a bit of anti-Facebook backlash percolating in the SM universe. The news this morning that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg could reap as much as $28 billion in Facebook’s IPO could fan the flames even more.)

Almost no one uses anything other than three as their primary tool. YouTube and Twitter are both hovering around 2%.

So, how much time are you spending on SM? Here’s what you said …

The results were rather surprising (at least to me):

• One-third of you spend a grand total of zero minutes each week using SM @ work.
• The most popular answer was 1-30 minutes, capturing another third or so.
• Less than one-fifth spend more than an hour a week on SM.
• Approximately one-tenth spend 3 or more hours on SM, with 1% spending more than 10 hours. Yikes.

Social Media Freaking You Out?

In our pre-webinar survey, confusion over social media rules was repeatedly named as a top concern. For all the latest legal developments in that area, check out our webinar replay and our handy 2012 Employment Law Tool Box, which includes a sample social media policy courtesy of the fine folks at McGuire Woods LLP.

As always, thanks for your participation. Stay tuned for more on the latest trends affecting the wonderful world of workplace law.

According to a new study, 64% of employees will work the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. But 39% say that basically zilch will get done.

Some other factoids:

• 56% will actually come into the office that week
• 58% say the time will be used to catch up on what should have been done during the previous 51 weeks
• 68% of small company employees will work that week (versus only 49% of large company employees)

I tend to side with the sentiments expressed by the 39% noted above. Based on that scientific and statistically significant data, I have concluded that it would be prudent for the Blawg to take the next week-and-a-half off.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!
SEE YOU IN THE NEW YEAR!