How to Handle Social Media in the Business Environment

Everywhere you turn, you hear something about "Follow us on Twitter," or "Like my Facebook Page." Social media is a communications platform that is here to stay, and if you're like many business owners, you're wondering "what does this mean for me and my business? How do I use it in my business without it becoming a distraction?"

Social media should be a part of your business's marketing plan and controlling employees' usage on these sites will help keep them productive instead of allowing them to use company time for personal interaction.

But now that businesses are effectively using social media as a marketing and communications tool, the question becomes whether to allow employees to use social media while at work or on work equipment.

Social media can be a distraction and it poses IT security risks. These sites are known to bring viruses and malware into organizations, so if you decide to allow employees to use social media for business or personal reasons, there are options to mitigate the risks.

One step is to craft and distribute an Acceptable Use Policy to all employees. This policy should clearly define:

• Where employees can and cannot go online
• What types of files employees can and cannot download to your network or upload onto social media sites
• When and to what extent they are allowed to use the Internet for personal matters
• Which types of activities are strictly forbidden
• What the consequences are of violating these policies

Another step would be to make sure you put the appropriate controls on your employees' computers.

It's nearly impossible to police every activity your employees do online, but installing a Web filter is an easy way to control who can access social media sites and other websites that are not related to business. Web filters also block Internet applications that you don't want your employees using at work and offer additional protection against malware and viruses.

These controls can be as loose or tight as you want them. You can offer access to specific employees and can even determine what time they are allowed to access these sites. For example, you could decide that your staff is allowed to access Facebook only from noon to 1 p.m. during their lunch period. Or you can decide that just your marketing staff can access it all day, every day. It's a flexible system, so it's really up to you to decide.

Additionally, web filters offer Internet usage reporting, which will give you a high-level look at your bandwidth consumption, how much time your employees are spending on non-business related Web activities, what sites they are visiting, as well as your exposeure to viruses.

When dealing with porential security threats, it is always best to address the situation before something bad happens.

Your IT administrator, or outsourced IT department, can easily set up any of these systems, which will help secure your business from social media-related viruses and problems.

As featured in the September 4th issue of The Press Enterprise.