What are pros and cons of using social media for business?
The biggest pro is that it’s a relatively inexpensive way to promote your business. Social media may give broader exposure to your business, even more so than hosting a company website. People aren’t going to find your business on the Internet unless they do a specific Google search about your business or what you do. But when you’re active in social media, people come to you, and all those people automatically find out about your business whenever you want them to. You can keep people informed about new products and services, you can offer customer support and you can tout awards and recognitions — and all of this is targeted directly to your customers and clients.
The biggest drawback is that social media requires significant attention and monitoring. You have to be aware of that need and allocate the resources — whether internally or externally — necessary to keep your social media sites up and running. Social media sites have policies of their own (and those policies often change, especially when it comes to business pages), so you need to make sure you’re always operating in accordance with those policies. You don’t want your site to get shut down because you didn’t monitor and keep up with a policy change.
How can you minimize the risk posed by employees using social media?
Make sure you have a social media policy in place and that employees are adequately informed of and trained on that policy. Also, supervisors and human resources personnel must be trained on policy enforcement.
If you do monitor your employees’ social media, be very transparent about it — make it a part of the policy and let employees know from day one that you will be monitoring them. Don’t ever monitor employees in deceptive ways. You cannot create a false persona online to gain access to your employees.
Are there any other social media considerations businesses should be aware of?
Be aware of Federal Trade Commission endorsement guidelines, which have been updated to address online promotion. If someone is promoting your product online and is receiving any type of compensation for it, or has a material connection to your company, certain disclosures must be made.
There was a case where a public relations agency was monitoring social media sites for comments about its clients’ products. The PR agency then posted positive comments and rebuffed negative comments about its clients’ products. The FTC said that was a violation of endorsement regulations because the PR agency didn’t disclose that it was essentially being compensated for its comments.
These guidelines may also come into play when employees promote or defend your company online. It is important to include as part of your social media policy a requirement that employees fully disclose their affiliation with your company when promoting or commenting on your company online.
CHARLA CLAYPOOL is an associate with The Stolar Partnership LLP and is a member of the firm’s Social Media Practice Group. Reach her at [email protected].
