Bevil Wood­ing

There is no deny­ing so­cial me­dia's im­pact on hu­man as well as busi­ness com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Tech­nol­o­gy-en­abled so­cial net­work­ing is pro­vid­ing re­mark­able new ways for peo­ple to con­nect and forge re­la­tion­ships. For or­gan­i­sa­tions, so­cial me­dia plat­forms of­fer new op­por­tu­ni­ties to en­gage clients and part­ners, build brand aware­ness and in­volve the pub­lic in in­ter­est­ing ways that can help ex­tend both reach and ap­peal. But ill-in­formed or ir­re­spon­si­ble so­cial me­dia us­age can have se­vere ram­i­fi­ca­tions for in­di­vid­u­als and or­gan­i­sa­tions that do not have ef­fec­tive so­cial me­dia poli­cies in place.

The grow­ing so­cial

The growth and in­flu­ence of on­line so­cial net­works is as­tound­ing. Face­book alone has racked up 1.06 bil­lion month­ly ac­tive users, 680 mil­lion mo­bile users and more than 50 mil­lion pages.

Twit­ter, the mi­cro-blog­ging site, has more than 500 mil­lion to­tal users and more than 200 mil­lion ac­tive users. These are on­ly two out of hun­dreds of on­line com­mu­ni­ties net­work­ing peo­ple, busi­ness and in­ter­est groups.

It would be fool­ish for any or­gan­i­sa­tion to ig­nore or de­ny the val­ue of so­cial me­dia plat­forms as a strate­gic busi­ness re­source. This is why com­pa­nies are mov­ing in droves to es­tab­lish an on­line, so­cial me­dia pres­ence. But many com­pa­nies are on­ly now go­ing where their em­ploy­ees al­ready are.

Em­ploy­ees, in their per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty, are like­ly to al­ready have ac­counts with pop­u­lar so­cial me­dia plat­forms. They are like­ly to be shar­ing their opin­ions there, in pri­vate, on a pub­lic plat­form.

To fur­ther com­pli­cate mat­ters, the posts–whether it's com­ments, pho­tos or videos–are sub­ject to the laws of the coun­try of the ser­vice provider (typ­i­cal­ly the Unit­ed States). This is why em­ploy­ee use of so­cial me­dia can be a con­tro­ver­sial top­ic.

The right to ex­press

Em­ploy­ers are in­creas­ing­ly en­coun­ter­ing sce­nar­ios where at­ten­tion is brought to an em­ploy­ee's post­ing on a so­cial net­work that can be in­ter­pret­ed as of­fen­sive, threat­en­ing or defam­a­to­ry to the com­pa­ny or to co-work­ers.

In the US, ac­cord­ing to a Jan­u­ary 2013 rul­ing by the Na­tion­al Labour Re­la­tions Board, it is le­gal to voice neg­a­tive opin­ions about your em­ploy­er (on a per­son­al ac­count) if you're speak­ing on be­half of a group of em­ploy­ees and if your in­ten­tion is to im­prove the con­di­tions of your job.

The rul­ing al­so in­cludes guide­lines on speech that is "of­fen­sive" or qual­i­fies as "vent­ing". This kind of le­gal guid­ance is ob­vi­ous­ly help­ful in in­form­ing em­ploy­er so­cial me­dia poli­cies.

How­ev­er, since US law does not ap­ply out­side of the US, em­ploy­ers and em­ploy­ees should be mind­ful of the le­gal frame­work gov­ern­ing their so­cial me­dia ex­ploits.

In the British Com­mon­wealth, for ex­am­ple, a num­ber of coun­ties, still op­er­ate un­der a le­gal frame­work de­signed for a colo­nial con­text where the no­tion of free speech was seen as a threat to rul­ing class and to the sta­bil­i­ty of the em­pire. Laws on li­bel and defama­tion of char­ac­ter, still in ef­fect to this day in many Com­mon­wealth coun­tries, are a prod­uct of that era.

This is one rea­son why so­cial me­dia plat­forms are prov­ing to be es­pe­cial­ly pop­u­lar in coun­tries where there is lim­it­ed free­dom of ex­pres­sion. So­cial me­dia plat­forms pro­vide a glob­al out­let for per­son­al ex­pres­sion.

The so­cial me­dia plat­forms them­selves are amoral. How they are ul­ti­mate­ly used, how­ev­er, hinge on an in­di­vid­ual's re­gard for oth­ers. This is why so­cial me­dia ex­pres­sions are a use­ful point­er to the wider state of a so­ci­ety.

So, in or­gan­i­sa­tions or in so­ci­eties where in­di­vid­u­als per­ceive their opin­ions will not be heed­ed, so­cial net­works rep­re­sent a pow­er­ful, em­pow­er­ing–though po­ten­tial­ly dam­ag­ing–out­let of ex­pres­sion. If em­ploy­ees per­ceive that av­enues for safe ex­pres­sion or fair re­dress do not ex­ist in-house, so­cial me­dia presents a ready al­ter­na­tive.

Lead­er­ship, not tech­nol­o­gy

But how do you pro­ceed in the ab­sence of le­gal guide­lines? What should your so­cial me­dia pol­i­cy say and do? That ul­ti­mate­ly will de­pend on your or­gan­i­sa­tion's par­tic­u­lar needs and its val­ues sys­tem.

As or­gan­i­sa­tions make ef­forts to nav­i­gate the chop­py wa­ters of on­line so­cial me­dia man­age­ment, a cor­po­rate so­cial me­dia pol­i­cy can act as an ef­fec­tive rud­der. But, be­yond pol­i­cy, an in­formed lead­er­ship per­spec­tive is even more im­por­tant to guid­ing em­ploy­ers to­ward more pro­gres­sive, open-mind­ed ap­proach­es to so­cial me­dia.

The ex­tent to which em­ploy­ers val­ue em­ploy­ee and cus­tomer views, even when con­tra­dic­to­ry to cur­rent cor­po­rate po­si­tions, will al­ways be re­flect­ed in cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions pol­i­cy and prac­tice. A ma­ture lead­er­ship ap­proach can dic­tate how ef­fec­tive­ly tech­nol­o­gy is lever­aged for the cor­po­rate good and can even help in­form wider in­dus­try labour poli­cies.

Em­ploy­ers should com­mu­ni­cate their ex­pec­ta­tions clear­ly to em­ploy­ees. At the same time, em­ploy­ees' rights to ex­press them­selves should not be un­fair­ly lim­it­ed. If there is im­bal­ance in this equa­tion, no one wins.

Or­gan­i­sa­tions should use so­cial me­dia poli­cies to help guide their em­ploy­ees in­to habits of us­ing so­cial net­works re­spon­si­bly. Com­pa­nies can of­fer so­cial me­dia train­ing pro­grammes to en­cour­age em­ploy­ers to use the tech­nol­o­gy in pos­i­tive, ben­e­fi­cial ways, while mak­ing clear the ap­pro­pri­ate lim­its of that use.

In an in­creas­ing­ly in­ter­con­nect­ed world, a well thought out so­cial me­dia pol­i­cy can be a strate­gic tool in mit­i­gat­ing risk for both the em­ploy­er and the em­ploy­ee.

How­ev­er, with­out a clear pol­i­cy and a cor­po­rate cul­ture that en­cour­ages mean­ing­ful di­a­logue, the risks of so­cial me­dia be­come far more omi­nous than the ben­e­fits.

Bevil Wood­ing is the chief knowl­edge of­fi­cer of Con­gress WBN, a val­ues-based, in­ter­na­tion­al non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion and an In­ter­net strate­gist with US-based Pack­et Clear­ing House. Fol­low on Twit­ter: @bevil­wood­ing or at: face­book.com/bevil­wood­ing or con­tact via e-mail at: tech­nol­o­gy­mat­ters@bright­path­foun­da­tion.org