Chief executives, PRs and marketers fear opening up their organisations’ social media sites for comment because they don’t want to lose control of the message, according to Matthew Jeffery, head of talent acquisition and global talent brand at 3D design software provider Autodesk.

Speaking at a meeting of The Forum for In-house Recruitment Managers (The FIRM) last week, Jeffery said recruiters needed to challenge this attitude. “PR and marketing is traditionally about controlling the message, and their fear is that with social media, where people can have their opinion, this message will be lost,” said Jeffery.

He said what they didn’t realise was that people were already talking about their company elsewhere on the web. By encouraging comment on their own sites, the organisations themselves could get involved in debate, he said.

Jeffery’s previous employer, Electronic Arts, encountered just such a problem before he joined. The spouse of an EA employee alleged in an online blog that EA workers were being overworked and underpaid. The blog received widespread press coverage. One of Jeffery’s key achievements at EA after his arrival was emphasising open dialogue online.