Facebook and Social Media: saving on the cost of private investigator

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Amanda Galashan

EmployEase is a niche employment law consultancy, helping small to medium businesses deal with the day to day issues that arise with their employees. Part of that work involves helping our clients deal with disciplinary issues. Over the years, we have seen how technology impacts on both the way disciplinary issues are dealt with and how technology can become the focus and cause of a disciplinary dispute. Considering how relaxed most people are about sharing the intimate details (and photos) of their lives through the social media they use, it seems inevitable that we would start to see cases on its use and abuse in the work place.

One example from last year, was an employee who called in to work and explained that she was suffering from a migraine and that she would not be coming into work that day. Shortly after, the employee boasted on Facebook that she was throwing a sickie and wanted to see what friends were around to meet for a drink a bit later in the day. With our help, the employee was invited to a disciplinary hearing to explain herself. The employee was subsequently dismissed for gross misconduct. During the disciplinary meeting, the employee complained that the company had clearly infringed her human rights because her Facebook privacy settings meant that only her friends could see her posts and not friends of friends or everyone. For her, this meant that the company must have breached her privacy settings in some way. Unfortunately for the employee, she had forgotten that her manager was one of her Facebook friends who received a notification by email of the employee’s updated status and promptly called us.

This is not the first time we have been asked to assist with sorting out a problem that an employee has caused through posting inappropriate messages or photos on Facebook. A few years ago, we were asked to advise in a situation where an employee had posted sexually graphic photos of herself and then complained that colleagues were sharing these photos around the office (and presumably elsewhere) forgetting that some of those colleagues were also Facebook friends. Nevertheless, the employer had to step in to stop the gossip and teasing and help the employee get over what must have felt like a walk of shame.

The employment tribunals have also reported on the problems of social media in Preece v JD Wetherspoon plc,. The tribunal case that found it was fair to dismiss an employee who had made inappropriate comments on Facebook about two customers. What seems to have been helpful in this case was that the employee made the comments while at work, using the company’s computer and her comments were in breach of the employer’s e-mail and Internet policy, which specifically referred to use of media such as Facebook while at work. The disciplinary procedure also listed as gross misconduct, acts that affect employee or customer relations or brought the company’s name into disrepute.

So is there any expectation of privacy for your Facebook profile? The employment appeal tribunal (EAT) decision in Pay v Lancashire Probation Service suggests that the answer is no. In this case, the EAT held that a probation officer who specialised in the treatment of sex offenders could not rely on the Human Rights Act in support of his unfair dismissal claim when he was dismissed for his involvement in sadomasochistic activities publicised on the Internet. The claimant had put photographs of himself engaged in such acts in the public domain, and they therefore fell outside the protection of Article 8.

Employees often confuse personal and private. Quite simply, if you decide to publicise your personal life on the net, your personal life is no longer your private life.
For employers, all these cases highlight the importance and usefulness of having a properly drafted policy regarding the use of social media that includes explanations about proper and improper use. It is also helpful to explain to employees that it is inappropriate to use social media like Facebook or Twitter to express frustration in the workplace.

A sensible policy will include:

Employee use of IT resources generally
Confidentiality and how this applies to social media tools
Intellectual property and how this applies to social media tools
Prohibition on harassment and bullying
Prohibition on discrimination
Prohibition on negative comments about the company, clients and colleagues
You may also want to ensure that there is a prohibition on negative comments about the competition
A reminder that when you use social media tools such as Facebook, you are making public what you are doing, ‘public’ being the operative word

It is easy to get very excited about prohibitions on what can and can’t be said, but take some time to think about the restrictions you really need to impose on use. If you are overly restrictive, you may be creating a problem for yourself because employees do not take the policy seriously.
If you are going to introduce a social media policy, it will be helpful also to discuss it with your employees and make sure that your managers understand how to use it effectively.
If you would like help with drafting a social media policy or have come across similar cases, please let us know.

This blog post does not constitute legal advice on any particular situation you may have, but if you have any concerns and would like to ask us specific questions, please call either Amanda Galashan or Julie Calleux at EmployEase on 0845 123 3741, or email us at info at employease dot co dot uk

Social media and the law: forecasted developments in 2012 (econsultancy.com)
Dismissal for Posting Vulgar Comments About a Colleague on Facebook was Fair (floydgrahamsolicitors.com)
LinkedIn case highlights social media legal conundrum (premierlinedirect.co.uk)

Outsourcing social media isn’t social

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Pauline Randall

Having a scoot through my Twitter feed this morning I spotted a tweet offering to ‘manage your Twitter and Facebook posting’. Those of you who know me will be aware that I don’t think that outsourcing your social media posting is a great idea. In fact, go further than that – I think it is a really bad idea.

If you ask someone else to post on your behalf you’re asking them to understand your business and to be able to speak for it. Now that might just work if they were only handling your account but if they take on outsourced social media they will be running a whole load of accounts. Be realistic – can they really understand all these businesses? If they understand the sector you’re in they may well be posting for your competitors as well as for you. If they avoid that conundrum then they will be trying to get their heads around several different sectors – plumbing followed by financial services followed by hairdressing. If your financial advisor came along and offered to install central heating whilst she was there would you go for it?

And what does your phantom poster do with responses? Do they reply or do they ignore them? What about problems, complaints? If they have to refer them to you how long will it take before there is a response?

Anyway, being broad minded I decided to take a look at the website of the company offering these services. They are charging $15 a month for 5 hours posting – that should be the first alarm going off – I don’t know about the US but that is so far below minimum wage as to be a joke so either they are having you on about the number of hours that they are doing or they are employing slave labour – would you want either to front your business? Next I took a look at some of the accounts they are posting to – and that is exactly what they are doing. Marketing tweets, the occasional retweet (other accounts of theirs?) and the odd inspirational quote thrown in for good measure. No engagement, no relationship building.

Now before you say it, I know that there are businesses out there who manage social media for their clients and who offer a professional service but I still hold to my view that it is unlikely that an external business can really build the social engagement that you should be looking to bring to your organisation. Anything less than that just isn’t social.

7 Questions to ask before you jump into social media

Posted on April 11, 2012 by Pauline Randall

The trouble with social media is that it appears to be free and fast. Most social media accounts can be set up without you showing your credit card and it only takes five minutes to create a Twitter account or a Facebook page. But if it was that simple everyone would be doing it brilliantly!

So before you leap into (or even if you’re already doing it) ask yourself the following questions:

1. What do I want to achieve?

Starting without a clear objective is asking for trouble. A bit like walking into a shop without any idea of what you want to buy (or even if the shop sells it). So write down all the things that you would like to achieve using social media, as you work through the rest of the questions you’ll probably find you can cross a few of these off your list. The aim is to end up with a clear set of objectives.

2. Will social media help my business?

This is the point when you start to do some serious research. When we start working with a new social media client we work through the following areas:

What is the demographic of your current customer base?
What are they doing on social media at the moment? Where will we find them?
Are you looking to break into a new demographic? Are they using social media? And where will we find them?
What is the rest of your sector (large and small) doing on social media now?

What are they doing well? Can we learn from them?
What are they doing badly? Can we avoid their mistakes?

At the end of this exercise you should have a clearer idea of whether social media is a viable option for your business at the moment. It might be something you want to park for the time being, alternatively you will raring to go!

3. How will social media fit into my existing marketing strategy?

Social media marketing should not be something that sits on its own. You need to plan how you will integrate it into your overall marketing strategy – online and offline.

4. Which tools to start with?

Unless you have a lot of resources at your fingertips then it’s probably a good idea to start slowly. Your earlier research will have indicated to you which is likely to be the best option for your business – pick the number one choice and start with that. It might be Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn or YouTube or blogging or something else. You can always add other tools later – for now get the best out of one of them.

5. Who is going to ‘do’ it?

Yes, someone is going to need to spend some time on this. Some take the option of outsourcing but I think it is almost impossible to speak on behalf of another business so whilst we can help with research, support, training and management we do encourage our clients to actually ‘do’ their own social media.

When you’ve decided who (one or more people) is going to manage your social media on a day-to-day basis, you then need to consider the resources they need to support them. This will include training/coaching, content resources and the key one – time. You don’t necessarily need massive amounts of time but there should be some part of each day allocated to posting, monitoring and responding if this is going to work.

6. How long do I give it?

Social media is not a quick fix. It takes time and effort to build relationships so you need to give it a reasonable amount of time before deciding whether it remains as a key part of your marketing strategy. But how long is reasonable? I would expect to start to see some results within three months but would expect it to be at least six months before making major decisions on whether to keep investing time and resources so don’t expect miracles within a week.

7. How do I know if it’s worked?

This is where we meet metrics. When you set your objectives you should also decide how you are going to determine success. If you’re looking for increased web traffic then you need to have analytic software in your website to track where traffic comes from. If you have no idea how much web traffic you’re getting at the moment (there are a frightening number of businesses in that position) then you’ll have no idea whether your Tweeting or Facebooking brought you any increase so make sure that the metrics you plan to use are in place from the start.

So will it all work now?

If you answer the seven questions I can’t guarantee that social media will work for your business however you will go into it with a clear idea of what you want to achieve and how you’re going to measure success.

Why not join us on Facebook? Or chat with us on Twitter?

Invasion of privacy – a step too far?

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Pauline Randall

There have been quite a few stories in the media recently about organisations (mostly in the US at the moment) demanding the Facebook username and password for employees/potential employees. It goes under various guises – due diligence, background checks etc. It has reached such a level that Facebook (not always the most obvious candidate for protection of privacy) has restated that soliciting login details is against their Terms of Service.

It’s pretty well known that employers these days will check to see what’s in the public domain about a potential employee which is a good enough reason to be careful what you post and ensure that your privacy settings are set appropriately. But pushing further and wanting to either login to your account, shoulder surf whilst you are logged in or alternatively asking you to ‘friend’ HR is wrong whichever way you look at it. They might as well invite you into their house to have a look around their cupboards and drawers.

But have you considered that it might even cause a problem for the business? There is a resignation letter doing the rounds online which points out that knowing too much can put the organisation in a very difficult position. Once you’ve found out something about someone you can’t un-know it and, as the examples in the letter illustrate, you could now be faced with some awkward choices.

And suppose, for a minute, that you persuade your employee to ‘friend’ HR. Your organisation now has access to their friends personal details. People who probably don’t know you, who don’t work for you and have absolutely no desire for you to go nosing into their personal life. You might also want to consider what you’re going to do if you find out something that you don’t like (assuming at this point you don’t work for the law enforcement services and even if you do, you’ve probably gained access to information in a way that may not be admissible in court).

Maybe now is a good time to review your HR policy as regards background checks and make sure that whilst being diligent you are also staying on the right side of respecting people’s privacy.

And if someone insists that you let them have access suggest they reciprocate by handing over the keys to their online banking – after all, you’ll want to be sure that you’re working for a company that can afford to pay you at the end of the month…!

Should the King Have your Social Media Passwords? (dontbitetheapple.net)
Employers Ask to Poke Through Facebook Profiles (thoughtsofmytwenties.com)
Recruitment trend we hate: Asking for Facebook passwords during the interview (venturebeat.com)

It’s a numbers game… or is it?

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Pauline Randall

There was an interesting article in Marketing Week, reporting on a presentation by Philip Gladman (Diageo Western Europe white spirits director). The key thrust of his speech talked about the skills sets required by future brand managers. I don’t see a problem with that.

It was when the conversation moved to social media metrics and scale that I started to wonder if he really understood social media.

“Most brands communities are between 100 and 200,000, frankly, unless you are going to get to a million you should stick {the money} in TV. There’s absolutely no point in having a little Facebook community bubbling away. You buy your way to scale.”

I don’t think so. Marketing has moved on a long way from the days when it was only about finding the big audience. Back in the day we only had one commercial TV channel so if you advertised there you took a huge chunk of the population. Now we have endless channels, the ability to time shift and to skip the ads. TV is now incredibly segmented. Add to that the segmentation in social media – Facebook. Twitter, YouTube, blogs and you can’t assume that the only places worth being are where you have huge numbers.

And if numbers are his key metric what about engagement? Social media is not push marketing (although you’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise if you looked at some of the big brands Facebook pages). It is about engagement, talking, listening, responding and the brands that do that will win in the end. I can go along and ‘Like’ any of Diageo’s pages and never visit again. Or even take any notice of their posts . But a business that uses their page to engage – that’s a different matter. One of my favourite examples at the moment is Waitrose – visit their Facebook page and check out the ‘Recent posts by others’ and see real engagement. And how does that make me feel about their brand? I feel good!

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