Corporations implementing social media guidelines for employees: Being proactive, or limiting free speech?

It appears that corporations are not realizing the impact that social media and social networking sites like Facebook have on their corporate reputation and overall brand image.  More high profile corporations such as Intel are establishing social media guidelines for their employees to follow. Intel has published their social media guidelines on their web site for employees and the general public to view.  Of course, this is going to be easier said than implemented. Also, it appears that the Associated Press is under fire recently for telling their employees to not only control what they post on their social media sites (ex. Facebook) – but what their friends also post on their sites.  Hmm – can we say that this is a Social Media PR Nightmare taking place?

Corporations like Intel have a challenge ahead of them because they want to appear transparent and honest with their specific target audiences by allowing their brand ambassadors (ex. employees) be able to communicate freely online about working at the company and their overall general impression of the reputation and brand.  However, by implementing these social media guidelines, does that hinder free speech in some way?  What if an employee has an issue with the corporation that is legit and is a whistleblower?  What steps and strategies are in place for this?

This is just one of the many scenarios that can happen with corporations – and this goes to show the impact that social media has on not only how we communicate with each other, but how corporations (and its PR professionals representing them) have to be strategic managers of the corporate reputation and brand image.  There are many ways to implement an effective social media policy within a corporation, and Mashable has a list of ten must-haves that corporations need for policy to be successful and proactive.  It will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of weeks to see if other corporations follow suit, and what “social media guidelines” they set for their employees.

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen