Think carefully before making a social-media leap
by Ed Marquette
Technology's advances require business owners to keep Internet policies current.
Social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter aren’t just for kids any more. Smart business owners realize that their employees are on-line with social networks like those, LinkedIn and more, for a shockingly large percentage of their days.
They also know that social networks offer, essentially, a free background check on employees (actual and prospective) and competitors. And that the information in profiles on social networks makes for the very best kind of marketing—targeted marketing. One more reason: the phenomenon of social advertising—advertising that is not merely unilateral like TV ads, but that is viral spreading exponentially through a community as customers tell customers. A prudent business, however, recognizes that with every opportunity there are associated risks and that the ill-prepared are just victims waiting to happen.
Social networks are interactive Web sites where people share their profiles and can connect to each other based on where they went to school, their professions, where they live, favorite TV shows, and dozens of other bases. Online, they get to share with friends, in real time, what is going on in their lives.
But with any new social phenomenon, the potential for abuse almost always coexists. It is almost certain that a large percentage of office workers are busily working away on their computers in Microsoft Word, Excel, or one of a dozen accounting or ERP packages while also having an Internet Explorer or Firefox window open, logged in at Facebook. What does it matter? Beyond the distraction from work, an employee responding to the ubiquitous social-networking question, “What are you doing right now?” could unwittingly share potentially damaging information. A seemingly harmless comment about test failures, new findings or product plans can leak potentially damaging information.
Although the potential for damage is obvious, measures for preventing it are not. Existing Internet and e-mail policies, though adequate when written, are now hopelessly inadequate in the always on, in-your-face, in-your-every-activity world of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.
Should you simply ban participation in social networks? There may be times when such networking could be of enormous value to your company, so an absolute ban is probably a bad idea. Instead, smart entrepreneurs tailor their policies around what the company needs and what it would like its employees to do. For some, having employees on Twitter or Facebook while at work should be simply banned, but don’t do that without thinking or without considering how these social networks could really be of value. Here are a few practical Social Networking tips:
1. Have your IT department check to see the extent to which social networking is being used at work. That will tell you whether you have a problem, and if so, how serious it is.
2. Limit access to networking sites. This may vary with the different types of employees. No one, however, should be logged into a social networking site all day long unless explicitly on a mission for the company.
3. Remind employees not to disclose what they’re doing at work. The stock response to, “What are you doing right now?” should be, “I’m at work.”
4. Remind employees that there is no such thing as privacy on a social network. Everything said online should be assumed to be fully public, even though it purports to be “private” or “confidential.”
5. All of the same precautions relating to abusive, harassing, defamatory, and similar inappropriate e-mail messages should apply to tweets and other social-networking conversations.
6. Employees should be prohibited from using the employer’s name or trademarks in any context in which
they could be construed as taking a position on behalf of the company.
7. Remind employees: Just because it is on the Internet, that does not mean that the rules of privacy and copyright do not apply. They most certainly do.
8. Policies must be updated to take into account mobile devices and other computing and communications devices not conceived of when they were first written.
The need to update your company’s e-mail and Internet policies is urgent. Social networks may be a viable business tool. They already are a fabric of our culture, and smart entrepreneurs recognize that and take advantage
of it—or, at least, protect themselves from possible damage from it.
Ed Marquette is with the Kansas City law firm of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal.
P | 816.460.2483
E | emarquette@sonnenschein.com
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