Member Article

The Social Network did not just tell the fascinating story of Facebook's rise to a social media power house. It showed how society is increasingly using social platforms as one of its primary channels for communication. Social media is broader than social networking sites such as Facebook or Linked-In. It encompasses all Internet-based communications, including personal blogs, microblogging sites such as Twitter, and video and photo-sharing websites like YouTube and Flickr.

As Facebook has reached 500 million users, corporations have struggled with drafting policies that properly limit misuse of social media by employees. While a company's approach to social media will vary depending upon the corporate culture and industry, a look at the social media policies in the Fortune 500 companies' codes of conduct highlights how corporations are addressing the Facebook phenomenon.

First, social media policies are new. Most companies have yet to integrate a social media policy into their codes of conduct. Indeed, virtually all of the codes of conduct that addressed social media and/or social networking policies were revised in 2009 and 2010.

Second, technology companies are ahead of the curve in including social media policies in their codes of conduct when compared to companies from other industries. For example, 23 percent of technology companies from our study included social media and/or social networking policies in their codes of conduct, compared to only 10 percent of oil and gas companies-an industry that has been slower to integrate social networking policies into its codes of conduct.

Third, social media policies of the Fortune 500 show that companies are struggling to balance the pros and cons of employee social media usage. Many of the social media policies we analyzed include some positive language regarding social media, encouraging employees to use social media appropriately.

Excerpted from Corporate Counsel. To view the full article, click on the PDF link below.

PDF - Facebook's Impact