People use social media at home and work place too. Every company has some social media guidelines that its employees has to follow, to safeguard their company. Social media usage has some risks and can affect your company in many ways like infringement of company’s secrets, trade secrets disclosure and some legal risks etc, which the employer and the employees have to know before they post content on these social networking sites. Social networking mistakes have legal consequence to the comments and unintentional posts posted on the site. These things can affect the employer and the company.
Social media posts are permanent and they will go viral on the internet within a short time. These posts can cause a damage to the organization. To prevent all of this organization must have employee policies to control the liable exposure of the company.
1. Maintain accuracy and transparency
If an employee posts comments on the organization or the industry of the organization, then he must reveal his details like name and that he is an employee of that organization. It is ethical and prevents the risk of others claiming that the employee was hiding his association with the company. Using false names to comment on the organization topics must strictly be discouraged. It is important that the credibility of the association has to be maintained. Employees need to check all their comments are accurate and fact based before they are posted on the social sites.
2. Disclaimers
if an employee discusses or comments on a topic that s related to his organization or industry and is not making them on behalf of the company, then he or she must use a disclaimer stating that the comments are solely their own views and has nothing to do with the company. To do so just state “ I work for a “company name”, but the following comment or opinion is solely mine and has nothing to do with the company.”
3. Follow the laws
Your organization employees must cite the materials in their posts and have to provide the links to their original source always. Employees must seek the permission of the company or the organization, before they use their copyrighted materials or the company’s trademarks on a blog or social networking sites.
4. Privacy of company’s employees is important
Employees at all time have to maintain the privacy of their co workers. They should not share their information such as photographs, personal details of their colleagues, unless they have the written consent from the concerned person. Information always needs to stay private.
5. Confidential info should not be revealed
All organizations have confidential information. Employees need to take caution that they do not disclose this confidential info online under ant circumstances. Sometimes, even tweets can disclose the company’s confidential info. Therefore, if you are in doubt about revealing confidential info through your tweets, you better stay out of it.
6. Stay tolerant and give respect
whether an employee is speaking for an organization or not, he is still representing the company in the public and thus has to act accordingly. Therefore, they should not post materials that are offensive or inappropriate. Though the business correspondence formalities do not apply to the social networking, the employees should still respect others.
7. Clarify correctly the statements that are mistaken
Sometimes even apt statements can b a cause of confusion. In such situations, the employees must review the sites regularly after posting comments. In case the comments of an employee are misinterpreted, he or she should immediately clarify them in the right manner.
Create a written policy for your employees, so that they think wisely before they post.
