Is your social media presence really yours?
Today’s guest post is from Drew McLellan, “top dog” at McLellan Marketing Group and member of our SmartBrief on Social Media Advisory Board.
A high-level ad exec puts a multimillion-dollar account at risk because of his tweet. A long-time Eagles employee gets fired because of a Facebook update. A student teacher is denied her teaching certificate for posting a picture of herself titled “drunk pirate” to her MySpace page.
Don’t tell me that your employer has no right to access, judge or discipline you based on your social media activities. It’s happening. And I suspect it’s only the beginning.
About three weeks ago, I wrote a post on “Who really owns your social media persona?“ and suggested that we’re coming up on a critical employment issue:
If you’re employed by someone else — do they in essence own a part of your social media persona? Aren’t you (despite any disclaimer language) representing your employer just as much as you the person when you tweet, blog or update a status?
Where do you think this is headed? Will employee manuals of the future have “social media guidelines?” Do you think your boss has a right to censor your social media activity? Do you think you have an obligation to do so?
If the comments on my original blog post are any indication, people have very strong feelings about these questions. Some believe they’re avoiding it all together by having dual accounts on all the social networks. Others are outraged at the notion that their employer would have any say over what they do on their personal time.
What do you think? How are you handling this as an employee? An employer?
Image credit, iStock
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Tags: Drew McLellan, privacy, workers
Categories: Ideas in Action
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Posted by Stuart Foster ~ The Lost Jacket on April 13th, 2009 at 8:41 am
I think it really comes down to this: Think before you speak or post. If you try and live your life in a transparent and open manner (like I do) you will find a lot of the “problems” with social media tend to go away. It’s an open forum and everyone can read everything that you say. Just use common sense.
Posted by Maggie on April 13th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Yup–my company has a social media policy as part of the employee handbook. Refers employees to existing policies that are also relevant with regard to social media: privacy, computer use, etc–and addresses common sense stuff like be mindful of what you post, consider that it’s viewable to the world and forever, etc. etc. Also establishes who is allowed to comment/blog, etc on behalf of the company and what kind of disclaimers others should use.
Posted by Vance on April 13th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Maybe. We’ve had no guidance from the corporate level & we’re currently working on our local guidelines…including our company’s social media involvement & customer interaction.
Posted by Elisa DelBonis on April 13th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Oy vey! Manage your personal brand! Think about what you do on the internet as something anyone in the world can see and on which they can judge your character, professionalism, and intelligence. Seriously… you’re the one putting it out there. Don’t be pissed when it bites you in the ass.
Posted by Steve Radick on April 13th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Why are we treating what people do on their Facebook page any differently than what people do in the general public. Why are we making different rules for how to act online vs. in “real-life?” Organizations need to realize that if they want to take advantage of the positive outreach, thought leadership, etc., of their people that they are also taking on a bit of a risk and have to be prepared to deal with it. This should be a question of risk mitigation, not risk avoidance.
Dual accounts don’t work for me because if you meet me in the office, I’m Steve Radick. If you meet me at a bar later that night, I’m still Steve Radick. I conduct myself differently at each, but I’m not a different person. I think employers have to start realizing that people are people all the time, they’re not “professional Steve” and “personal Steve.”
Posted by Lisa on April 14th, 2009 at 9:18 am
It is a fine line between being an ambassador for your company and saying something libelous. I do not agree with businesses dictating employee social media content on personal sites, to a point. But if the employee is bashing the company, they are hurting their livelihood by hurting biting the hand that feeds. If they do it, they are just idiots. I am currently in the process of writing a social media section into my editorial guidelines. I am not the first as one website has 30 examples from corporate and governmental employers. In it, I hope to train 170 employees to be social media ambassadors.
Posted by Big Brother vs. Social Media vs. Basil Fawlty on June 5th, 2009 at 7:09 am
[...] a growing issue. I noticed about a month ago, posting on SmartBlog, Drew McClellan asked: Is your social media presence really yours? She added: A high-level ad exec puts a multimillion-dollar account at risk because of his tweet. [...]