It’s 5 o’clock. Do you know what your employees are tweeting?
Today’s Wall Street Journal raises the issue of company confidentiality in the age of social media. Twitter, blogs and other networking tools have made it easier to keep employees and customers updated on what’s going on at your company, but the speed and high impact of these new vectors of communication mean that sensitive company information can easily end up before an unintended audience. In fact, WSJ’s Dana Mattioli reports, a recent survey of 586 U.S. workers found that 14% admitted to sending confidential company emails to outsiders.
The prevalence of these leaks highlights the importance of establishing protocols and policies to regulate all internal and external communications. As PR counselors, we can help our clients to develop effective communications policies that will do just that. Social media are powerful tools that can give your company an edge in the Web 2.0 world, but they can just as easily work against you without the right protocols in place.
