The Social Media Handbook

Rules, Policies, and Best Practices to Successfully Manage Your Organization's Social Media Presence, Posts, and Potential

Nancy Flynn

• Publisher: Pfeiffer
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781118084625
• eBook ISBN: 9781118206812
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

The Social Media Handbook is a comprehensive risk and compliance management toolkit that walks employers step-by-step through the process of developing and implementing effective social media policy and compliance management programs that are designed to minimize—and in some cases prevent—social networking and web 2.0 risks and other electronic disasters.

Throughout this important resource Nancy Flynn (an internationally recognized expert on workplace social media) offers a guide to best practices for creating safe, effective, and compliant electronic business communications. The book contains a thorough review of the risks inherent in employees' social media use and content and explores how organizations can help manage behavior, mitigate risks, and maximize compliance through the implementation of strategic social media compliance management programs. These programs combine written policies, supported by comprehensive employee education and are enforced by proven-effective technology tools. Once these policies and programs are in place employers can safely take advantage of the marketing and communications benefits offered by social media.

Covering a wealth of material, the book includes vital information on topics such as social media and the law; managing records and e-discovery compliantly; regulatory compliance; privacy and security; blog risks and compliance rules; mobile devices drive social media risks; a seven-step plan for social media policy and compliance management; conducting a social media audit; creating social media policies; content rules and compliance; policy compliance and education; reputation management; and more.

In addition to addressing pertinent topics on risk management, the book contains cautionary, real-life social networking disaster stories that show how organizations can lose revenue and reputations, reveals how employees can lose jobs, and explains how individuals can face public humiliation.

The Social Media Handbook is a hands-on guide written for human resource professionals, information technology managers, legal professionals, compliance officers, records managers, and others who need to manage today's technology tools with up-to-date employment rules.

Chapter 1
WHY EVERY ORGANIZATION NEEDS A SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY AND COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

From Twitter and Facebook to YouTube, blogs, smartphones, and tablet PCs, employees’ access to the web—and employers’ exposure to potentially costly and protracted risks—is greater today than ever before. Whether responding to customer inquiries via Twitter, posting coupons on Facebook, building brand awareness on blogs, or conducting product demonstrations on YouTube, the business community’s ever-growing social media use dramatically increases organizations’ exposure to potential lawsuits, regulatory violations, security breaches, mismanaged business records, productivity drains, netiquette nightmares, public relations disasters, and other electronic risks.

When employed strategically, there’s no denying that business blogs, corporate Facebook pages, instructional YouTube videos, private enterprise-grade social networking platforms, and other social media and web 2.0 tools can facilitate speedy and successful two-way communication with customers, as well as creative and constructive collaboration with colleagues.

Workplace use of social networking sites and web 2.0 technologies increased dramatically between 2007 and 2010, growing from just 11 percent to over 66 percent in a three-year span. Over 90 percent of organizations believe web 2.0 technologies are effective at increasing brand awareness, and another 89 percent consider these communication and collaboration tools essential when it comes to generating new business or supporting customer service. That’s according to Clearswift’s 2010 report, Web 2.0 in the Workplace Today.¹

Similarly, when managed properly, employees’ personal use of social media (via company accounts and systems as well as users’ own personal sites and devices) can enhance workers’ overall satisfaction with and commitment to their jobs. In fact, one-fifth of the group that the Clearswift report labels “Generation Standby” workers (younger employees who never fully switch off from the Internet at work or home) say that they would turn down employment if the boss did not allow them to access social networking sites or personal email during working hours.²

In the age of social media, employers must perform a balancing act. On the one hand, you want to provide enough social web access to keep your business thriving and maintain consideration for some level of personal usage. On the other hand, you are obligated to manage social media use effectively in order to protect your organization’s assets, reputation, and future.

The most effective way to accomplish both goals is to implement social media policies, also known as acceptable use policies (AUPs), supported by comprehensive employee training, and enforced by best-in-class technology tools.

TEST YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT KNOW-HOW

When it comes to communicating and collaborating with internal and external audiences, employees today enjoy a broad range of electronic options. From tweeting and blogging to surfing, Skyping, texting, and talking via mobile devices, twenty-first-century communication tools and technologies facilitate speedy interactions between organizations and their important audiences, including customers, prospects, investors, the media, decision makers, and the public.

Given the comprehensive mix of electronic business communication tools now available to companies and users, compliance management—more than ever—is a critical business skill. Take this brief quiz to determine your social media compliance management know-how.

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1. 1. As of 2011, social networking had surpassed email as the electronic communication tool of choice for most business users.
   

   True

   

   False
2. 2. Because computers have been workplace staples for so long, most employers today are fully aware of—and adept at managing—electronic risks including potentially costly litigation, regulatory fines, security breaches, productivity drains, and public relations nightmares.
   

   True

   

   False
3. 3. In the United States, federal and state laws governing the use, content, records, privacy, and security of electronic information have changed very little since the year 1995.
   

   True

   

   False
4. 4. Government and industry regulations governing the use, content, records, privacy, and security of email and other forms of electronic business communication basically are the same today as they were in 2001.
   

   True

   

   False
5. 5. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which govern e-discovery, are mirrored by the rules of civil procedures in all 50 states.
   

   True

   

   False
6. 6. Text messaging is completely different from email. Consequently, email risks and rules do not apply to text messaging.
   

   True

   

   False
7. 7. In accordance with best practices, Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs) governing social media, blogs, email, mobile devices, and other electronic business communication tools and technologies should be reviewed and updated once every decade.
   

   True

   

   False

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THE NEED FOR STRATEGIC COMPLIANCE MANAGEMENT HAS NEVER BEEN GREATER

If you answered “true” to any of these seven statements, then it’s time to brush up on your knowledge of social media compliance management—and electronic compliance management in general.

Effective compliance management is a priority for any organization—large or small, public or private, regulated or unregulated—that is eager to adhere to legal, regulatory, and organizational rules, while mitigating potentially costly risks. Effective compliance management, of course, begins with formal rules and written policies.

Social networking is risky business

By now, most people are familiar with the type of high-profile, well-publicized email gaffes and Internet disasters that tarnish corporate reputations, savage stock valuations, launch million-dollar lawsuits, derail careers, and trigger media feeding frenzies. Thanks to social media—and the widespread use of mobile devices to access social networking sites day and night—employers’ exposure to electronic risks is greater t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• About This Book
• About Pfeiffer
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents of the Web
• Dedication
• About the Author
• Introduction: Getting the Most from This Resource
• Chapter 1: Why Every Organization Needs a Social Media Policy and Compliance Management Program
• Chapter 2: Social Media and the Law
• Chapter 3: Social Networking Creates Legal Evidence
• Chapter 4: Regulatory Compliance
• Chapter 5: Privacy, Security, and Social Media
• Chapter 6: Blog Risks and Compliance Rules
• Chapter 7: Mobile Devices Drive Social Media Risks
• Chapter 8: Seven-Step Action Plan for Successful Social Media Policy and Compliance Management
• Chapter 9: Conduct a Social Media Policy Audit
• Chapter 10: Writing Effective Social Media Policies
• Chapter 11: Content Rules Are Critical to Compliance
• Chapter 12: Enforce Policy Compliance with Education
• Chapter 13: Reputation Management
• Chapter 14: Sample Policies
• Chapter 15: Glossary of Social Media, Legal, Regulatory, and Technology Terms
• Index
• End User License Agreement