The most recent statistics report that LinkedIn now has over 100,000,000 users and Twitter has over 175.000.000. But Facebook far-and-away leads the pack with over 640,000,000 users – that is more than double the population of the entire United States!

Consider these incredible statistics as reported last year by Network Box, an online internet security firm:

An analysis of over 13 billion business URLs in Q1 2010, indicates that almost 7 percent of all business internet traffic goes to Facebook, while a whopping 10 percent of all corporate bandwidth is used up on YouTube!

The bottom line – the chances are, on any given work day, your employees are online. Whether your corporate culture embraces social media, or despises it (or simply doesn’t understand it), it is crucial to implement a social media policy in the workplace. Any business that does not have a solid policy in place, or doesn’t train its employees on the do’s and don’ts of social networking as it relates to the company, exposes themselves to significant risks. Beyond disparaging remarks or negative press, this can include opening its doors to the release of trade secrets or confidential information.

The Four Key Elements of a Social Media Policy

There are several venues now for electronic and social media, and businesses should have a policy in place that addresses each one.

1. Social Media Guidelines. The Social Media Guidelines addresses the posting on a company-sponsored website.  Your company may have a Facebook, MySpace or Twitter page and employees are allowed to post comments and interact with customers and clients through this medium.
2. Blogging. Blogging is the posting of information on either a personal or someone else’s site, web log, journal etc and also includes posting opinions on YouTube, Twitter, bulletin boards, chat rooms, etc. It is on-duty and directly relates to the business of the company
3. Social Networking. Social Networking addresses how employees represent the company or speak of  the company while they are off duty
4. Electronic Media. Finally, the Electronic media and monitoring policy is about how employees use the company property issued to them, whether it is a PC or a laptop, Blackberry, mobile phone or office phone, stationary or mobile equipment. This policy addresses the appropriate use of the equipment, and the understanding that because it is company property, there should be a greatly reduced – or zero – expectation of privacy.

The law permits employers to regulate and even prohibit employees from engaging in online social networking activities while on company time, property or business.  It is also appropriate to limit employees from posting disparaging comments or discussing company business while social networking by adopting a policy making it clear that such conduct is inappropriate. Again, the objective is to lower the expectations of privacy of employees when implementing these policies.

In our next post, we’ll take a look at some general guidelines to help get your social media policy on track.

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