If your company maintains its own social media account, you will also want to set guidelines for its use. There may be issues regarding who owns your social media account if, for instance, your chief social media author leaves employment and tries to take the social media accounts with him/her. The employer may have claims relating to trade secrets and misappropriation.

On the other hand, employees may also have claims. In one case, a director of marketing created a company blog, a company Facebook page from her personal Facebook account and a personal Twitter account that she used to promote the company. She kept all log-in information on a spreadsheet on her work computer.

While the employee took a medical leave, the company maintained the social media accounts and made posts to her Twitter account and accessed the company’s Facebook page through her personal account. The employee sued pursuant to the Stored Communications Act.1

The court allowed the employee to proceed with her claim and recognized that the Stored Communications Act provides “a private cause of action for unauthorized, intentional access to communications held in electronic storage.”

• Without carefully drafted employer guidelines regarding company social media, ownership issues may arise.

In addition, the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising addresses endorsements by consumers, experts, organizations and celebrities.

These guides provide examples of what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised guides stipulate that, although the FTC will issue decisions on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose their material connection with the seller of a product or service.

Consider the following best practices:

• Clarify that the company owns, operates and manages the accounts. Have users set up the accounts with company email, etc., and require users to provide IT with password/log-in information.
• Define roles of social media users, rules, reporting structures, reviewing and editing procedures, and monitoring.
• Consider creating separate policies for job-related, required use of social media and personal use.
• Inform your employees that they should not post testimonials or endorsements about your company or any of its products or services on social media websites without disclosing their relationship to your company.
• Consult with legal counsel to draft a clear policy that balances the FTC guidelines against employees’ freedom of speech and privacy rights.

1. Maremont v. Susan Freedman Design Group, Ltd. 2014 WL 812401 (N.D. Ill. 2014)