We recently read about possible legal trouble when a teacher posted private information about a student on a TV station’s Facebook page. You can watch a video news account of the story here.
Some of the interesting characteristics of this case are:
- The school district had no formal social media initiative and probably did not think it needed a social media policy.
- The teacher’s activity took place outside school hours, on a forum that had nothing to do with the school.
- The comment was made about a commonly-known event: a student had been suspended.
- The student’s comment was also inflammatory, accusing that a scholarship contest was rigged.
And yet the school, the teacher, and even the student, might be in hot water. It is a very real example of why every organization needs a social media policy — even when employees are not formally engaged on the social web!
If you don’t have a social media policy, it’s probably time to mitigate risk for you and your employees by creating one. When we work with our clients on social media policies, we walk them through a custom process that includes:
- How much company time should be spent on the social web?
- Associated security issues
- Expected level of participation
- Appropriate representation of the company or organization
- Consequences of abuse
- Legal
- Ethical
- Proprietary
- Technical and security
- Brand issues
- Internal protocol if problem arises?
And of course there are many considerations specific to a company and industry such as the social media link to business strategy, competitive concerns and regulations. After a policy has been created and approved, it is a best practice to train employees on the policy.
It’s not necessarily an easy task, which is why many of our clients are turning to us for advice. It’s important to protect both employees and employers by having a robust and practical social media policy. If you don’t have one, it probably should be a priority to establish a policy soon.
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Intel’s social media policy is an an excellent of a well thought out and rational policy (see link below). It is effective, protects the company, and yet does not inhibit participation in social communities and networks.
http://www.intel.com/sites/sitewide/en_US
/social-media.htm
With regard to the ongoing debate about “employees wasting time on social networks during work hours” When phones, copiers, fax machines, then computers and the internet companies worried and fretted about employees using company “resources” for personal use and “wasting” time on these things. Eventually the needless fear of the new technology was replaced by the fear of the next new technology. The reality is that employees, at least the good ones, all have work to do and really don’t have time to spend all day playing solitaire or on Facebook, and if they are doing that and you take that away they will just talk on the phone or visit. My point here is that it is not a technology problem – it is an employee and management problem that exists with or without the technology.
Another hot topic is whether it is OK to say something negative in a blog. Oh no, what will we do if someone actually takes a position on something! Intel has a great way of explaining this, they call it the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Good comments/positions are obviously fine, Bad or negative positions are fine too if they are accurate, true and presented professionally, what is never acceptable are Ugly comments. Nuff said, that really sums up a great social media policy.
Best regards
Bill Grunau
Well said, Bill. Thank you!