Mediaboss Marketing

All it takes is a mouse click or two to enhance the business prospects of the social media-savvy company or land it in hot water.

As the use of social media increases, so do the ethical and legal pitfalls of information control. That was illustrated by the passage this spring of a new Maryland law prohibiting employers, with rare exceptions, from asking for personal account passwords from job applicants or employees.

But other legal dangers of social media use are becoming increasingly evident. Businesses struggle to balance their embrace of social media with the potential for misuse. And for many, they rely on oral guidelines, rather than documented policy.

We consider ourselves as a business to be at the forefront of engaging social media to present a comprehensive image to the public, said Eric Vermeiren, communication manager for Clean Currents, an alternative energy company in Silver Spring.

Besides having a corporate presence on major social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube, Clean Currents encourages its employees to use social media to keep up with company events and promote the company. Although Clean Currents lacks defined restrictions on employees use of social media, the company discourages oversaturating the cyberspace with too much or irrelevant information, Vermeiren said.

Clean Currents has 22 employees.

Were in the middle of fleshing out a longer social media strategy, Vermeiren said, adding that there is a bit of a back door when it comes to employees switching between the companys and their personal accounts.

One danger is the potential for employees to take a companys social media followers with them should they change jobs, said Susan Stobbart Shapiro, a partner with Council, Baradel, Kosmeri & Nolan in Annapolis. At a recent seminar for the Chesapeake Regional Tech Council, Shapiro presented the case of Phone Dog in South Carolina, in which an employee had used his personal Twitter account to promote Phone Dog. But once he left Phone Dog, that account and its many followers went with him, leaving Phone Dog in the lurch.

The old-school non-compete language needs to be revised to address this new medium, Shapiro said, adding that social media legal concerns have cropped up more within the last three years.

The Golden RuleStandard Solar, a solar power company in Rockville, applies a Golden Rule approach in allowing employees to use social media, said marketing manager Marisa Hartman.

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Gazette.Net: Workplace social media policies still a work in progress