CFOZone.com - The Network of Corporate Finance

You'd best be careful how you or your employees use Facebook or Twitter.

A Knoxville marketing firm recently filed a $2 million libel suit against a former client claiming Facebook and Twitter posts damaged the company's reputation. The client's entries--two in question--said things like "Do not EVER use this firm."

The case brings up a big problem many companies are dealing with--in the wild west of social networking you might have employees or even executives (think of Whole Foods' CEO) going on social networking sites, saying things that reflect badly on the company or could potentially be defamatory.

But how do you control this? What kind of rules do you or can you establish?

Yes, it's time to update the employee manual. HR will now need to come up with new policies regarding what's acceptable and what's not, and most importantly put them in writing and make sure it's sufficiently communicated to employees.

A new survey from CareerBuilder.com reveals much about how employees are spending their time. Some 51% of those surveyed spend time on their social networking page during the workday, 11 percent spend one hour or more. Twenty five percent include information about their employer in their communications on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace; 15 percent include company information on Twitter; 13 percent of workers with personal blogs say they blog about their companies.

Meanwhile, according to the survey, 37 percent of employers have a poicy on whether workers can communicate about the company on social media sites; 17 percent have implemented a stricter policy on employees communicating about the company on social media sites in the last year. Twenty one percent prohibit employees from communicating about the company, 13 percent have designated certain employees to post on behalf of the company and 16 percent monitor social networking profiles of employees and 14 percent monitor blogs.

Is anybody getting "real work" done?

Even if you have policies regarding employees and social media, it may not be enough. The NLRB just filed a complaint against a company that fired an employee for Facebook comments.It's a specific situation, but also sobering.
http://www.cfozone.com/index.php?option=com_myblog&show=NLRB-Hands-off-your-employees-Facebook-comments-.html&Itemid=713

As a follow up to my last comment. The question is, just how much privacy do we have online and on Facebook specifically? Are comments ultimately considered public statements or private conversations? Can you criticize your company or a vendor and regard that as safe? What should companies allow their employees to say--and what legally can they prohibit?

I'd love to hear from people about what your company social media policies are. Do you have any? What do you prohibit and how do you enforce it? And what about Gen Yers who live their lives on social media--How do you address that problem?