Social Media in the work place and in education are two areas of sensitivity right now. As businesses and education turn to social media in the future to engage their respective audience there are two precautionary measures to be considered.

The first question to ask yourself is whether you have a social media non-compete. This is discussed by Duct Tape Marketing. The importance of the non-compete falls more in the business arena than in does to education.

My thoughts on this topic are:
1) Businesses and employees should make sure they confirm the ownership terms upfront. A written contract would even be a good idea.
2) If the employer is not comfortable with the employee using their existing followers than have them create a separate account for business use, rather than using their personal account but keep in mind it will take a bit longer to gain followers for most small businesses this way.

The second thing to consider for both education and businesses is whether they have signed a social media netiquette agreement. By this I mean, drawing up an agreement of guidelines for using social media as an affiliate of the school or business. Using an agreement such as this would educate your social media participants to use the tools wisely and would also clearly define your expectations and regulations. After all, most participants in social media don’t necessarily think of the long term damage of posting a half naked photo of themselves in the bathroom mirror (typical myspace photos).

Teaching students and employees to be mindful of what they are broadcasting should be a priority, lasting impressions that are left online are damaging to ones personal and professional branding. From a personal perspective, I try to remind myself constantly that everyone has access to what I am posting not just friends. I think I speak for most twenty somethings when saying that I primarily started out using social media for just that, to socialize, share pics, and see what my friends were up to. It wasn’t until later that I developed an understanding for social media as a practical business tool. Once I realized this I instantly started using it more responsible and with more caution.

Some points that a netiquette agreement should make:

Negative Brand Image
If employee has their place of employment listed on their account they must not compromise the image of the company in any way.

This includes but it not limited to:
Inappropriate photos
Negative mentions or comments
Use of Profanity
Posting of unapproved content to school/business accounts

Safety Precautions
Don’t publish too much of you personal information on the internet such as address and phone number. ( This is a no-brainer for most who grew up with social media but some people just aren’t aware that anyone can access this info or just don’t think twice about it.) Don’t put yourself in danger. Don’t tweet about going out alone to a certain place or leaving town for a long period of time. If your address is available and you are letting strangers know that you won’t be home what is the probable outcome.

Separation of Duties
Lastly, another way to filter out the risk of letting students use social media for projects such as, say a high school newspaper is a separation of duties. Ex: Only allowing access for senior editors to post content. In a university setting an agreement should be enough of a security blanket.

There are probably many more contingencies for a netiquette agreement that I am not listing. Which ones come to your mind?

Note Worthy: If you are interested in reading more on social media in eduction I highly recommend this article.