I recently attended a social networking meeting, it was mostly non-HR types, but an issue I’ve been mulling over came up.
Who owns the social networking connections?
Let’s pretend that I’m known on Twitter as @avshockey (I’m not, but we’ll continue the fantasy by pretending I have something to do with the Colorado Avalanche and I’m employed by Kroenke Sports Enterprises who own the Avs).
Do the followers of @avshockey belong to me or to Kroenke Sports as my employer or to make it even more sticky, the NHL?
Does it matter, or should it matter?
Continuing my fairy tale from above, we’ll say I have more than 4,000 followers on Twitter, several thousand on my LinkedIn profile and my Facebook fan page, etc. I’m conscientious about my image and that of the Avs/Kroenke/NHL, I’m representing good sportsmanship and am an advocate of the sport, my team, my employer, etc. I communicate regularly, and my audience is engaged with me. And, because in order to be successful in social media, I reveal an appropriate amount of personal information in conversations — like the fact that one of my kids plays youth hockey, for example. In short, I am the brand that is Avalanche Hockey.
Because of my social media (socmed) persona, I’m helping to drive the business (more than the $588/month additional individual incremental revenue mentioned in the IBM/MIT study, via the HR Capitalist).
Pondering the conversation our own Ann Bares started over on Compensation Force I’m not compensated for my socmed persona and I’m not evaluated on my socmed persona. Should I be?
Now we have this situation to consider.... I @avshockey have just been hired by (yet in fairy tale land...) the Denver Broncos. What is the impact if @avshockey is no longer employed by Kroenke/Avs? Does it matter if @avshockey retires, quits or gets terminated? Do they/can they hire someone else? Am I willing give my Twitter name to someone else, or do I even have to? Can I ask Kroenke to pay me for it? If I do, how much is it worth? How much are my followers worth? Can I encourage my followers to come over to the Denver Broncos, or must I do that, if my work in socmed was part of the reason I was hired? Do they follow me because I’ve got a great socmed personality regardless of being @avshockey or because to them I’m the brand that is the Avs? What if @avshockey is taken over by another employee who doesn’t do a good job engaging the audience?
Since this is all brand new, there are no good answers or best practices yet, but here are a couple of points to consider:
If an employee wants to engage in socmed on behalf of the company, have them do so with a name that represents the company and the employee. For example, perhaps I should have been @avshockey_Terri. That allows a change to happen (@avshockey_Val, for example) without trying to “fool” your community. Even if you decide not to set a policy, watch and understand what your employees are doing in this important and very public arena, and involve the right departments. If a PR person tries to handle customer service issues on Facebook without the customer service department, good intentions may backfire. If an employee leaves, come to an agreement on how any social media representation will be handled. You don’t want a disgruntled former employee with thousands of Facebook fans airing dirty laundry. That can often be avoided by simply discussing and agreeing.
More for us and our legal counterparts to consider. Get ready.
Terri Albee, CCP, is managing partner of HR Ops Team LLC, which provides scalable and affordable human resources services, ensuring human resources structures are in legal compliance, streamlined for funding or exit events, or just optimized for day-to-day operations. Terri has planned and managed HR operations in a variety of industry verticals from start-up organizations to the Fortune 500, domestically and globally. Her experience encompasses design, implementation, compliance and management of compensation, benefit and equity plans at all levels.
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