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Social Media Policy Considerations

With more and more states banning employers from accessing password protected social media accounts, it is critically important for businesses to understand what is and is not permitted when it comes to social media in the workplace.  Michigan is the most recent state to enact legislation to prohibit employers and schools from asking applicants, employees, and students for their online passwords or account information in order to access private internet and email accounts, which includes social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, or other sites.  Anyone who breaches this law may face jail time and up to a $1,000 fine.  Michigan is not the only state to have enacted such legislation.  California, Maryland, and Illinois have also enacted such legislation. 

While this kind of legislation is important for businesses to be aware of, it's equally important for businesses to understand that they would be well served to draft a social media policy for their workplace.  Drafting such a policy, idealy with the help of an internet lawyer, will allow the business to clearly identify what is acceptable and unacceptable usage inside and outside of a business workplace.  It will also detail such things as what happens to the social media accounts when the employees employment is terminated.  A properly drafted social media policy should comply with privacy laws, such as those mentioned above that continue to be regularly enacted. Without a social media policy, it may be difficult to discipline an employee or terminate an employee based upon social media activity.

Social Media Trademark Infringement

Today, I will be talking about many issues that my law firm Traverse Legal, PLC often hears about as it relates to social media trademark infringement. And just so we’re all speaking the same language, when I’m talking about social media, I’m obviously talking about sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and many of the others that are popping up on what seems to be a daily basis.  And we are getting existing clients and prospective clients that continuously contact us and ask what is social media trademark infringement? 

A Social Media Policy is Important from a Liability, Governance & Business Model Point of View

Welcome to Internet Law Radio. My name is Enrico Schaefer, and today we are speaking with Chris Boudreaux, and Chris runs an amazing blog called Socialmediagovernance.com.   He's an executive with Converseon, and he has got the number one database of social media policies on the web.   He's also an expert in social media policies and the governance side of corporations trying to implement social media within their operations.

Enrico:  Welcome to the show, Chris.

Chris:  Thank you.   Thank you for having me.

Enrico:  Great.  Chris, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself first?

Chris:  Sure, my background at least is relevant to this area really started back at Bank Of America when I was doing large-scale business transformation and process reengineering across business units there and post merger integration, and dealing with the issues in a large organization where you're in a highly regulated environment trying to change the way a large organization does business.   A few years later, I found myself at Accenture where I was then doing business transformation work and online product strategy work for technology companies like Microsoft, EBay, Kodak and organizations like that.   And over the last few years, I started getting more and more involved in social media and started to see a lot of parallels between the way things like IT in large organizations have evolved over the past ten years, and how social media in large organizations is taking a lot of similar paths to that. That's where I started to get more involved in helping large organizations use social media more thoughtfully, which led to the creation of the Social Media Governance website along with things that I'm doing today.

Social Media Policies Within The Workplace

With the advent of Social Media, employers must be more vigilant in protecting their intellectual property. Social media policy should define the uses of a trademark within social media outlets to ensure that the trademark does not become generic through use. Damien Allen and John Di Giacomo discuss the need for solid Social Media Policies within the workplace on today's program.

• A social media policy is a policy that’s implemented by an employer that provides the employees with guidelines and any best practices for representing an employer on a social media networks.

• Protecting your intellectual property.

• Understanding your media presence and the internet space. What is and is not acceptable.

• Balancing transparency of your business and your instant connection with your audience with the idea of brand control and brand identity.

Announcer:  Welcome to Internet Law Radio brought to you by Traverse Internet Law, attorneys specializing in internet law and all legal issues within cyberspace.  Now here’s your host, Damien Allen.

Damien Allen:  Good morning and welcome to Internet Law Radio.  My name is Damien Allen, and joining me today on the phone is John Di Giacomo an attorney with Traverse Legal, PLC.  Good morning John and welcome to the program.