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12/29/2011 Authored by: Jeremy S.
Who owns your company’s Twitter account?
The facts of the case seem to be as follows:
- Employee Noah Kravitz, while working for PhoneDog, created the Twitter account @phonedog_noah, and gained over 17,000 followers
- The company did not have a Twitter account, but asked Noah to also tweet about PhoneDog articles on the company’s behalf
- Noah left PhoneDog in October 2010, and changed his Twitter account to @NoahKravitz, taking the 17,000+ followers with him
- PhoneDog is seeking damages of $340,000 based on a value of $2.50 per Twitter follower
There are a few interesting viewpoints generated from this case. From PhoneDog’s perspective, Noah grew a following based upon his association with PhoneDog and because account includes the company name. This account could therefore be seen as an official company account.
Noah might argue that this was a personal account, and that because he tweeted about many things other than PhoneDog, it is clearly not the official company account.
As a third party observer, I would argue that since Twitter is offering a free service, they own all of the data and followers, and that neither party has a right to sue.
Regardless of your stance on the case, it should make you think about your company’s social media policy. Is there one? Does it define ownership and access to accounts? You might have a Marketing Director or other employee maintaining your Twitter or Facebook account; but if that person were to leave the company on unhappy grounds, could they delete or abuse the company account? If so, years of effort would disappear in a few mouse clicks.
Even if they do not maliciously try to destroy your company’s social media presence, the simple decision as to who owns what account (which is really what seems to be the debate in the lawsuit mentioned above) can be settled with a clearly understood company policy on the matter.
Creating a policy
“Being proactive rather than reactive is where it all goes down,” says Matthew Sheehan, Envision’s Manager of Software as a Service.
This article has created a small buzz in the Envision office, and we all agree with Matt. Now is the time for your company or organization to create a written policy to protect your name and followers. This policy should not only limited to Twitter. It should be flexible enough to not only cover Facebook, Google Circles and YouTube, but any future social media profiles.
To ensure your policy protects your organization’s online profiles, you should consider the following actions:
- All logins to company profiles should be kept in a file accessible to more than one person
- All logins should be associated with a generic e-mail address, that multiple personnel have access to (e.g. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address))
- All passwords should change when people who know that password leave or are terminated
Once your company profiles have some protection, you will need to consider employee accounts. Define what they are and determine their limitations, if any.
It’s your turn
What would you do if you were PhoneDog? Do you have a Twitter policy? Have you been burned by the recently fired? Share your thoughts and experience below.
Comments
I own it.
Posted by Nemo on 01/03 at 11:24 AM