Introduction

The rise of social media has affected the way we ultimately share information through
cross communication, therefore, we see it imperative that our own organization develops and
establishes a regulatory social media policy for our employees. The prevalence of internet
usage within businesses and organizations has become an extensive outlet that fosters
communication and productivity. Specifically, the use of social media networking sites has
increased tremendously since 2005, with nearly 65% of American adults admitting to using
them regularly (Perrin, 2015). Positive trends in social media usage is conveyed in Figure 11, and according to the Pew Research Center, there has been a tenfold jump in usage since
2005 (Perrin, 2015). Recognizing the potential opportunities that social media provides in
engaging with target audiences; enhancing brand awareness; and developing services
exemplifies the significance of social medias application to various operations.
The establishment of a corporate social media policy would align with our code of
ethics and compliance, as it would serve the ultimate purpose of protecting the interests of
our organization, as well, as our constituents. Following local, state, and federal statutes, this
policy would not be designed to infringe upon any first amendment rights, but to guide our
employees on how to ethically use social media platforms. The National Labor Relations
Board (NLRB) has indicated that a majority of its rulings on regulating employer social
media policies have been case-specific; however, numerous states, including Maryland, have
enacted legislation regarding social media usage that generally aim to protect the terms and
conditions of employment (Fact Sheet 7: Workplace Privacy and Employee Monitoring,
2016).
A social media policy would ensure that our employees are aware of our companys
expectations for behavior and communication online, whether it is for professional or
personal use. Through accountability and responsibility, representation, and respect for our
organization, the creation of an efficient policy would aim to prevent and mitigate issues
regarding the use of various networking sites. Specifically, this proposal will highlight key
areas of focus for the development of a social media policy, and the benefits that each will
have on our companys operations as a whole. The main areas of focus include personal
social media usage on company-provided tools and materials; confidentiality agreement
disclosures; defamation of character and misrepresentation of the organization through
affiliation; censorship of company participation controversial topics; as well as the
monitoring of authorized administrative accounts. Overall, the impact of a social media
policy would allow our company to allocate the responsibility of content control advocate for
the principles of integrity and professionalism; support advances and popular trends in
technology; as well as essentially reducing risk and unwarranted exposure for business.

Proposed Social Media Policy Clauses

I.
Discouragement of Personal Social Media Usage on Company-Provided Tools
and Materials
Employees may be granted the opportunity to receive company-provides tools and
materials for work related purposes. Such materials may include, but are not limited to,
smartphones, tablets, computers, and laptops. In alignment with our Electronic Usage
Policies, it is important to note that any information and communications stored
electronically on these devices are the property of the employer and not the employee. As
access to these materials are not limited to one individual, we encourage employees to protect
their rights to privacy, and refrain from entering and/or storing personal information such as
usernames and passwords on them. Thus, the application of a social media clause that
discourages the personal internet use on provided devices can be justified. Essentially, this
clause can increase employee morale, reduce lost productivity time while using these
materials, and increase equipment and software longevity.
II.
Use of Administrative Accounts as they are Inherent to an Employees Nature of
Work
As social media has become a widely used facet for communication, it is
understandable that the use of these sites are inherent to the nature of an employees work. In
order to foster transparency and clarify appropriate usage, employees whose duties require
the use of social media must operate under authorized administrative accounts. Usernames
and passwords for these accounts will be generated by the organization and distributed to
employees and their supervisors accordingly. Similar to Abbotts Social Media Terms of
Use (2016), the purpose of this clause is to reiterate that our company will reserve the rights
to any social media channels that are in use of our trademarks and logos. By utilizing
administrative accounts, monitoring activity will be simplified, as employees are expected to
operate them in good faith; and it would reduce the amount of time spent analyzing other
unauthorized accounts. Furthermore, administrative accounts would be beneficial in
controlling the addition, removal, or modification of content; dissociating from disruptive
online users; as well as beginning or ceasing additional social media resources.
HR has the right to monitor Social Media accounts of employees
After the application process, the Human Resources Department reserves the right to
perform a review on an employee's social media account. This may include the review of any
social media accounts linked to the contact information provided; but a company can't dig
deeply into someone's personal social media activities. Employees and job applicants can
view it as a form of cyberstalking(Don Phin).A company that relies on information obtained
from social media sites to manage its employees on a post-hire basis, can set itself up for
breach of privacy or discrimination claims(Don Phin). The basic rule here is to not go beyond
public pages in any online search.
III. Employee Non-Disclosure and Confidentiality Agreements are to be Upheld in the
Professional and Personal Usage of Social Media Accounts
Employees are required to sign a legally binding, non-disclosure and confidentiality
agreement upon hiring. This non-disclosure agreement protects the interests of our
organizations operations by prohibiting the divulging of specific trade secrets, confidential
information, and/or proprietary data to unauthorized individuals. As our employees are

considered to be agents of the firm, there is a clear expectation that they uphold this
agreement, made applicable to the professional and personal usage of social media sites.
Specifically, this clause states that any disclosure of confidential information by an employee
is subject to litigation, as it not only violates the terms and conditions of the non-disclosure
agreement; but also poses as a detrimental threat to our internal controls and operations. This
is currently exemplified by Adidas, in which their social media and internet usage policies
prohibit employees from sharing design plans, internal operations and legal matters because
they are considered the trade secrets of the organization. Best Buy, Inc. also follows a similar
policy that prohibits the sharing of financial information online (HireRabbit Blog, 2013). The
exposure of such information can be detrimental to the success of an organization because it
offsets fair competition and allows the public to gain insight to internal controls and
processes.
IV. The Censorship of Controversial Topics and their Affiliation with our Organization
Another policy that we should have involves opinionated topics. When discussing
political, socioeconomic, and controversial topics, employees must state that the posting is
merely their personal opinion, and is not affiliated with our company. Rather than expecting
our employees to conform or infringing upon their first amendment rights, we encourage
employees to not state opinions or personal beliefs on behalf of the organization. Employees
are prohibited from directly, or indirectly, stating that their opinions represent the views of the
company. This policy will prevent us from offending other individuals, initiating bias, and
reducing the probability of having to utilize a crisis-management team.
V. Inappropriate Usage of Social Media Accounts are Subject to Penalty
We recommend that the companys comprehensive social media policy should include
cautioning employees with discipline or civil prosecution for participating in dishonorable
action, as well as failing to report a violation of an unlawful social media policy. According to
Yahoos social media policy, You should have legal responsibility with your opinion when
you post inappropriate or prohibited material (Zawodny, 2005). For example, Sams club
employees were caught faking illnesses due to excessive drinking the night before work. A
manager of Sams Club saw these pictures online and left comments publicly shaming the
employees. The employees were wrong to call out of work for illegitimate reasons but the
manager was also in the wrong because she handled the situation outside of work. She should
have reported the picture to her superior and called the employees into her office to have a
face to face conversation (Carney, 2013). Employee management should not happen online
on social media, it should be reported accordingly. All social media posts should be
appropriate and should not include any negative information regarding coworkers or work
environment. This includes higher ranking employees including managers and executives.
VI. Remaining Transparent in the Monitoring of Social Media Accounts
Since the employees represent our company, any unlawful action on their part reflects
badly on the company. All employees should be aware of this and act accordingly to best
embody the company, so our company should include policy that if inappropriate social
media usage is retrieved, we can screen IP addresses to show whether the post was made on a
work computer. IBM Social Computing guidelines have a policy that employees should be
transparent and must use real name, be clear who you are that you work for IBM (IBM,
2010). In one case, in a social network of Juicy Campus, users were encouraged to use social
network to gossip anonymously with peers. However the result come along with sexual and

personal threats and one of the colleges involved tried to resolve the problems by blocking
servers from the site.(Kovach, 2014) If this same situation were to happen with our
employees it would be easily resolved by tracking their posts through their IP address. This
way we would only have employees that conduct business and personal life in an appropriate
manner.
Conclusion
Social media policies are generally preventative measures to ensure that companies dont get
involved in lawsuits or cause customers to have a bias because of personal disputes. Our
policies will protect our company from unethical use of company equipment, breach of
confidentiality, defamation of the company, customer bias, unlawful use of company
property, and more. Kristin Piombino states that about 75% of companies have a social media
policy in place as of 2012 (Piombino 2012). Social media is extremely prominent today, and
its importance will continue to increase in the future. As stated in the introduction, nearly
65% of American adults use social media networking sites regularly (Perrin, 2015). Without
infringing upon any first amendment rights, our social media policies will maintain ethical
company standards. It is dangerous for companies to not have a social media policy, which is
why we need to start with these six important policies.

References
Abbott Social Media Terms of Use. Retrieved April 12, 2016, from
http://www.abbott.com/social-media-terms-of-use.html

Carney, T. (2013)The Social Media Merry-Go-Round | JD Supra. Retrieved April 07, 2016,
from http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/the-social-media-merry-go-round-62821/
Fact Sheet 7: Workplace Privacy and Employee Monitoring. Retrieved April 12, 2016, from
https://www.privacyrights.org/workplace-privacy-and-employee-monitoring#socialmedia
HireRabbit Blog. Retrieved April 07, 2016, from http://blog.hirerabbit.com/5-terrific-examplesof-company-social-media-policies/
IBM (2010) Social Computing Guidelines. Retrieved April 07, 2016, from
https://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html
Kovach, S. (2014) Why anonymous social networks are scary. Retrieved April 07, 2016, from
http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/02/tech/social-media/secret-apps-business-insider/
NLRB, Risk Assessment of Social Media. Retrieved April 12, 2016, from
https://www.sans.org/reading-room/whitepapers/riskmanagement/risk-assessment-socialmedia-33940
Perrin, A. (2015). Social Media Usage: 2005-2015. Retrieved April 12, 2016, from
http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/08/social-networking-usage-2005-2015/
Phin, D. (2014). SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND RISKS SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND RISKS.
Retrieved April 12, 2016, from https://www.thinkhr.com/website/wpcontent/uploads/2015/04/Social-Media-Use-Risks.pdf
Piombino, K. (2012) Infographic: 24 percent of companies have no social media policy.
Retrieved April 07, 2016, from
http://m.ragan.com/Main/Articles/Infographic_24_percent_of_companies_have_no_social_4
5628.
aspx
Raymond. (2013) Social Media Defamation and Reputational Attacks. Retrieved April 07,
2016, from http://www.natlawreview.com/article/social-media-defamation-and-reputationalattacks
Zawodny, J. D.(2005) Yahoo! Personal Blog Guidelines. Retrieved from
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/yahoo/yahoo-blog-guidelines.pdf