Creating a Business Social Networking Privacy Policy
By Chris Frerecks •
March 19th, 2010
I recently read a great article on privacy and policies in social networking and thought it would be nice to share a re-cap and some links. Below you’ll find some relevant questions to ask yourself when creating an internal social networking policy for your business.
The first bit of sage advice comes from privacy guru, Darity Wesley. She points out the importance of developing a social media policy for your business. Social mediums are important to businesses as target audiences are relevant and the platforms for viral messaging are invaluable. At the same time, these can be dangerous waters as personal and business spaces are closely intertwined. Some viable questions from Darity to think about when developing a social networking policy for your business:
Should employees be allowed to access social mediums at work for personal or business use?
If so, will access pose a security risk to your business via threats from malware?
Do you have non-disclosure agreements in place with your employees?
What do you want to reveal about your company via social mediums?
Do you have rules and restrictions in place for employee interaction in these mediums as company respresentatives?
Are there consequences in place for violations? ARe you willing to enforce them?
How will you train your staff on using social media guidelines?
ONe thing is clear – the answer is not to avoid these mediums, they are viable business marketing platforms. The answer is to be proactive, address potential issues upfront with policy. For more information read Darity’s article: Walking the Social Media Tightrope. http://privacygurus.blogspot.com/2010/03/walking-social-media-tightrope.html
The next article comes from a site called AllFacebook. It’s not a new resource, but I found their article entitled, “10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know”, highly informative and easy to follow. Facebook is probably the easiest space to get confused when it comes to personal and business messaging. It’s the place where all your worlds collide – friends, family, colleagues, old love interests – you name it, they are all there. Facebook offers a bevy of privacy settings that make it easy for you to manage the interface. You can show as much or as little as you like of your personal space. Here’s an overview, visit the article link above for complete details on how to achieve each task:
Use your friend lists
Create groupings of friends based on personal preferences
Remove yourself from Facebook Search Results
Remove your profile page from publicly showing in the Facebook search results
Remove yourself from Google
Remove your personal profile from displaying in the search engines
Avoid getting tagged in photos and videos
Define who can see tagged photos of you
Protect your photo albums
Hide photos on an album by album basis
Prevent your relationship status from being viewed
Control who can see your basic information
Protect against published application stories
Take back control from your installed applications
Make your contact information private
Choose who can see full details
Avoid embarrasing wall posts
Control who can see your posts and who can post to your wall
Keep your friendships private
Turn off your friends visibility to others
While these settings will keep you fairly protected, there is no way to keep all photos or videos from being visible if posted by your friends. Your best call in the world of Facebook is to use good judgement. Don’t forget you are creating a public profile and a history for all future employers and clients to scrutinize if they so choose!I recently read a few great articles on privacy and policies in social networking and thought it would be nice to share a re-cap and some links.
Today our sage business advice comes via privacy guru, Darity Wesley. She points out the importance of developing a social media policy for your business. Social mediums are important marketing vehicles, as target audiences are relevant and the opportunity for viral messaging is invaluable. At the same time, these can be dangerous waters because personal and business spaces can become closely intertwined. Some viable questions from Darity to think about when developing a social networking policy for your business:
- Should employees be allowed to access social mediums at work for personal or business use?
- If so, will access pose a security risk to your business via threats from malware?
- Do you have non-disclosure agreements in place with your employees?
- What do you want to reveal about your company via social mediums?
- Do you have rules and restrictions in place for employee interaction in these mediums as company representatives?
- Are there consequences in place for violations? ARe you willing to enforce them?
- How will you train your staff on using social media guidelines?
One thing is clear – the answer is not to avoid these mediums, they are viable business marketing platforms. The answer is to be proactive and address potential issues upfront with policy. For more information read Darity’s article: Walking the Social Media Tightrope.
Need help with social networking? Call or email us to find out how you can automatically push content from your blogs to your social network profiles!
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