Why Companies (And Employees) Should Keep A Copy Of Their Social Media Interactions

The importance of having a copy of your online content – not just in case of accidental loss or theft, but also for reference purposes cannot be overstated, especially when dealing with professional or business-related interactions.

One of our SocialSafe partners, a social media agency by the name of Immediate Future, recently staged a “social media mock employment tribunal”, held at the Law Society. In collaboration with legal firm Colman Coyle, real barristers went through the motions of a case, giving the those involved the chance to see the detailed consequences of what can happen when social media goes wrong.

In his conclusions, the Judge made it clear that if the brand had a social media policy in place, that case would have been favourable to the brand rather than the employee. The barristers and the judge also agreed that there is a need for not just a social media policy, but training. “A stitch in time, saves nine”, as my grandmother used to say.

The issue of privacy was dealt with during the tribunal, with many references to the ’employee’ thinking that their social network content was not publicly available. It is becoming all too apparent that people aren’t fully aware of what their default privacy settings are, or what further privacy can be achieved, and this is another area where social media training, as part of a company policy can help both the employee and the employer.

The last and perhaps most important point made in the blog from Immediate Future was that of evidence. Knowledge is power as they say, and having all the facts available when entering into legal proceedings is a must. If someone is accusing you of saying or posting something on a social network that has legal ramifications, or if you are contesting something said by an employee, it’s good to have a record of what went on, even months or years in the past, and to be able to search through it quickly and easily.

As Immediate Future say at the end of their blog, SocialSafe is a very good way of keeping a detailed and accurate record of content created on social networks. If you are a company wanting to keep track of what is said on your Facebook Page or Twitter account run by employees,or if you are an individual wanting to have your own private reference of your own social content, you can use SocialSafe to download the content from your social networks.