JXB1

B2B | LeadGen | Content | Social | Analytics | AdWords

  • Who We Are
  • What We Do
    • AdWords
    • Influence
    • Content Marketing
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Social Business / A New Victory in the Social Media Policy Debate

A New Victory in the Social Media Policy Debate

January 24, 2013 by JakeWengroff Leave a Comment

According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times, federal regulators are ordering employers to scale back policies that limit what workers can say online.

Apparently, the National Labor Relations Board continues to inform private-sector companies that workers have a right to discuss work conditions freely and without fear of retribution — whether those discussions take place at the office or on Facebook.


Clipped from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/technology/employers-social-media-policies-come-under-regulatory-scrutiny.html
(Share Clip)

Such guidelines set by the National Labor Relations Board, are designed, of course, to encourage workers to communicate freely with one another with the aim of improving wages, benefits, or working conditions.  Many companies find this to be a holdover from the industrial era, when employees were encouraged to unionize and communicate any questionable workplace situations.

Yet most social media policies in place today chiefly revolve around the possibility of the employee painting his or her employer in a negative, disparaging light — and presenting a challenge to the corporation’s brand, products, or services.

At issue, is that many employees may be unaware that what they are posting to Facebook or tweeting may position their employer negatively.  Employees generally want to do the right thing — and hold on to their jobs.

As such, training is needed to ensure that whatever the social media policy a company has in place, that employees are trained to exercise sound judgment when engaging on social networks.  According to Charlene Li of Altimeter Group, this is the biggest challenge facing social media policy drafting and its related employee training:  how do you train for judgment?

It’s often difficult to determine the percentage of companies with formal, written social media policies in place — you know, the kind that you have to sign on your first day of work — because a lot of companies have folded social media compliance into their existing Media Relations and Information Technology Usage policies.

A juicy tidbit I found online:  an online database of 219 social media policies, compiled by Chris Boudreaux.

When policies are more supportive rather than punitive, providing examples and hand-holding, employees can share all of the positive experiences of the workplace, and their employer receives innumerable benefits.

Are you struggling with designing a social media policy for your organization, or are you concerned with adherence or compliance?  Contact me, I’d love to hear from you.

 

Filed Under: Social Business, Social Media Tagged With: employees, governance, policy, social, social media, social media policy, training

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Tags

advertising blog blogging blogs Certification collaboration communities community content content marketing Copyblogger CRM demand generation Eloqua enterprise enterprise social enterprise social business Google GooglePlus HootSuite IAB InsideView marketing marketing automation Marketing Cloud media Radian6 Salesforce search SEM SEO SlideShare social social advertising social business social CRM social data social media social media marketing social media monitoring social sales training Twitter Twitter List Management Yammer

Copyright © 2023 · Centric Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in