Running Head: Land O Lakes

Land O Lakes and use of Facebook
Aaron Van Manen
May 9, 2012
Jeannette Taylor
MGT 438
Cornerstone University

Can a company survive without the use of Facebook, twitter, and YouTube in the 21st century? Land O Lake thought they could for many years. That was until the new CIO came into Land O Lakes. Barry Libenson, who became the CIO at Land O Lakes in 2010, looked at the company policy, which stated that Facebook, twitter and YouTube were sites that the company had banned from use by all employees with Land O lakes. Libenson’s commented on the policy stating, “We need to move into the 21st century.” (Boultan, 2012). When faced with the development of new ways to pass on information a company has to adapt to how they handle those situations. Part of corporate strategy is levering your information and tools for your profits. When things like Facebook are looked at as time wasters and things that threaten profits and information you ban them. That is the strategy that Land O Lakes took until Libenson came along. He spent the first few months he was employed by Land O Lakes spending ten of thousands of dollars in company time developing a new social media policy to use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for the companies gain. Libenson saw social media as a way to market the company, not as something employees would waste company time on. The time spent on developing a new social media policy was embraced by the CEO and adapted for marketing purposes for the company. The land O Lakes Facebook page was launched in August of 2010 and has nearly 45,00 likes (Boultan, 2012). Today Land O lakes uses social media for customers to share recipes and talk about how to use the products in recipes. Land O lakes will not comment on financial gains form using social media. A look at their financials will show you that in 2010 their sales were