Social Media – Why Should You Care? Carlos S. Arévalo Zukowski, Rogers, Flood & McArdle 50 Virginia St. Crystal Lake, IL / Stateline SHRM September 8, 2011

What is “Social Media”? Forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos). Merriam-Webster 2011 Merriam-Webster 2011

Types of Social Media Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Blogging

Facebook More than 750 million active users 50% of users log on to Facebook in any given day Average user has 130 friends People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

Facebook (cont.) There are more than 250 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices. People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users. There are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products.

Number of new accounts created on March 12, 2011: 572,000. Average number of new accounts per day over the last month: 460,000. Increase in number of mobile users over the past year: 182%. Twitter

Twitter (cont.) The average number of Tweets people sent per day, one year ago: 50 million. The average number of Tweets people sent per day, in the last month: 140 million. Tweets sent on March 11, 2011: 177 million. Tweets per second (TPS) when Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009 (a record at that time): 456.

LinkedIn As of August 4, 2011, LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 120 million members in over 200 countries and territories. More than half of LinkedIn members are currently located outside of the United States. There were nearly two billion people searches on LinkedIn in 2010.

LinkedIn (cont.) As of June 30, 2011 (the end of the second quarter), LinkedIn counts executives from all 2011 Fortune 500 companies as members; its corporate hiring tools are reportedly used by 75 of the Fortune 100 companies. More than 2 million companies have LinkedIn Company Pages. LinkedIn is currently available in nine languages: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Turkish and Romanian.

Blogging There have been more than 133,000,000 blogs indexed by Technorati since According to Universal McCann (now UM) 77% of Internet users read blogs. The popularity of blogging is split evenly among both men and women with 50.9% of bloggers being female and 49.1% being male. The United States has the largest share of bloggers with 29.22% of all bloggers.

Blogging (cont.) Hobbyists (non-income bloggers) seem to be blogging less and part-timers, professionals, and self-employed bloggers are blogging more than ever. 15% of Bloggers spend 10 or more hours each week blogging. One in five Bloggers report updating on a daily basis. The most common rate of updating is 2-3 times per week.

Social Media So should we care?

Social Media (cont.) Yes…

The Good... If used properly, it is an excellent marketing tool. It enhances access to potential customers, target audience. It allows for optimal communication between employees, customers and public. It fosters stronger relationships. It allows users to engage and remain competitive in today’s “global market”.

The Bad… You can be sued…

The Bad…for Employers If not handled properly, there may be problems related to: Recruitment Employee misconduct using social media Free Speech Access to Employee’s Use of Social Media Employee Discipline Based on Use of Social Media

Recruitment Pre-screening of employees by conducting internet search. Limiting recruitment efforts to internet. Failure to notify candidate of social media/internet search. Failure to verify information obtained in internet/social media. Decision making on social media information related to religious affiliation, age, ethnic, racial and sexual orientation (Illinois).

Employee Misconduct Potential for harassment using social media. Specific individuals can be targeted. It can be general in nature, intensifying conduct that creates a “hostile work environment”. Cyber-bullying using social media. On duty/off duty is irrelevant.

Free Speech Typically, a concern for public sector employers. Claims hinge on whether speech on matters of public concern are outside the scope of employment. Spanierman v. Hughes, a Connecticut case involving a non-tenured teacher fired for posting an Iraq war related poem. School prevailed because there were multiple inappropriate comments, pictures and communications between the teacher and students.

Access to Employee’s Social Media Primary consideration is the employee’s expectation of privacy. Expectation of privacy depends on who owns or pays for the equipment used, the nature of the communication and how it relates to the employee’s job. Does employer have a Social Media Policy in place?

City of Ontario v. Quon Supreme Court case decided in June City issued pagers to police officers with usage limits, which Sgt. Quon and other officers exceeded. Police Chief investigated whether limits were too low and to determine costs. Sgt. Quon’s usage consisted of non-work related messages of a sexually explicit nature. Sgt. Quon was disciplined following an internal affairs investigation.

City of Ontario v. Quon (cont.) City had written computer, internet and usage policy specifying that City “reserves the right to monitor and log all network activity…with or without notice” and that users “should have no expectation of privacy when using these resources”. Sgt. Quon claimed the City had violated his 4 th Amendment rights of protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Supreme Court eventually heard the case and applied a two step analysis: 1) Does the employee have a reasonable expectation of privacy; and 2) Was the search reasonable under all circumstances.

City of Ontario v. Quon (cont.) The Court found that search was motivated by a legitimate work-related purpose and was not excessive, and as a result, it was reasonable. However, the Court hesitated to find any reasonable expectation of privacy for Sgt. Quon noting that, given the dynamic and emerging technology of communication and information transmission, there may be far too many implications for future cases that cannot be predicted.

City of Ontario v. Quon (cont.) Impact of City of Ontario? It is not a general rule, each case will be decided on a case-by-case basis. Ontario is a public sector case. It underscore importance of work policies and notification to employees to ensure “there is no expectation of privacy”.

Employee Discipline Utilize concept of “just cause” –There must be a reasonable rule in place –There must be notice to employees of possible consequences –There must be an investigation –Investigation must be fair –There has to be proof –Disciplinary action must be equally and consistently applied –Disciplinary action must be appropriate

Social Media Policy Adopt a social media policy or revise existing computer usage policies to include social media. Policy sufficiently broad to address off-duty and personal use. Notification to employees of policy and no expectation of privacy. Notification to employees of company monitoring employee social media practices.

Social Media Policy (cont.) Define scope of policy and what is prohibited: –Company confidentiality –Use of disclaimers –Use of company property –Social media usage during work hours –Social media practices off duty –Rules of conduct apply to social media usage Identify consequences of violation of social media policy, including termination.

QUESTIONS?

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