Coming to Grips With Social Media

Conflict is stirring inside many corporations between marketing departments eager to exploit the myriad selling opportunities presented by social media, and those — especially in the corporate counsel's office — worried about the potential impact of such activities on liability exposure and corporate reputation. (See here, for example.)

Both sides of this simmering conflict have a good point.

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Recent studies suggest that social media may have a real impact on brand perception and sales.

Some 37 percent of Twitter followers, for example, buy from the brands they follow, while 33 percent of them recommend those brands to their friends. Facebook, which has some 550 million registered users, and Youtube, are also clearly influential. Nike's World Cup 2010 commercial, "Write the Future," for example, has been played and commented on more than 9 million times on Facebook, and viewed more than 20 million times on Youtube. (Also See: Social Media Won't Fix Brand Problems.)

However, it's also true that company-created online content — such as corporate Web sites, blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts, and A-V media for YouTube and Flickr, etc. — and use of social media, either on or off the job, by company employees, officers, vendors, or affiliates, and indeed every online point of contact between the company and its stakeholders, all carry considerable potential liability and risk for the corporation. (See here, for example.)

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Source: law.com
By: Julian A. Biggs