SOCIAL MEDIA - 11.06.2020

Disgruntled employees and your social media accounts

Cummings and goings

As the Prime Minister stood giving a speech confirming his full support and backing of Mr Cummings an unexpected tweet was posted to the Cabinet Office’s official Twitter account. It read: “Arrogant and offensive. Can you imagine having to work with these truth twisters” . The tweet was deleted within ten minutes but by then it had already been reposted and liked well over 30,000 times.

An hour later the Cabinet Office posted another tweet which read: “ An unauthorised tweet was posted on a government channel this evening. The post has been removed and we are investigating the matter” . Nevertheless, the damage was done.

Whodunnit?

Speculation was rife about the author of the tweet and it’s believed they are a disgruntled government employee. Whoever they are, this situation highlights how easy it is for official social media accounts to cause employers serious embarrassment.

Note. You can avoid a similar social media headache by having certain rules and processes in place that protect your accounts. Don’t leave it to chance.

Trustworthy and tested

First and foremost, you should only hand over control of your official social media accounts to one, maybe two, trusted employees. Ideally, this should be someone who’s been in your employment for some time.

That person should also have some level of seniority within your business. That way, they are more likely to be invested in your reputation.

Backup plans

Make sure all logins and passwords are recorded safely and these details are only disclosed to authorised personnel. Passwords should be strong and changed regularly.

Have a dedicated email for your social media accounts. Don’t let an employee use their work email address. Apart from the fact you won’t know what social-media-related emails are going to them, they could lock you out of your accounts.

Tip 1. If the person who runs your social media accounts hands in their notice, or otherwise leaves, take over the running of your social media accounts immediately and change all passwords.

Tip 2. Make it clear in a robust social media policy that any disparaging, unauthorised or offensive tweets will result in disciplinary action up to and including dismissal (see The next step ).

For a social media policy, visit http://tipsandadvice-personnel.co.uk/download (PS 22.13.07).