The dangers of Facebook, Twitter, blogging in the workplace

Excerpted from the Executive Report - Facebook, Twitter and Your Employees: The Dangers of Social Networking

Employees are flocking to social network sites. Every organization needs to have a written policy on use of social networking sites by employees - for the good of both employees and the company.

A recent Harris Interactive survey found that just under half (48%) of U.S. adults have either a MySpace or Facebook account.

Usage statistics are much lower for Twitter, with only 5% of Americans saying they currently use it. But that number doesn't tell the whole story.

Twitter grew 1,382% year-over-year as of February 2009, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the U.S. for the month.

As you might expect, there are substantial differences in who is and who isn't using these selected social networking sites:

• Three-fourths of those ages 18-34 (74%) have a Facebook or MySpace account, but this quickly drops off the older people get. Just under
• one-quarter (24%) of those ages 55+ have an account.
• Tweeting's also more common among the young, but not by much; only 8% of 18-34-year-olds use Twitter, while 7% of those ages 35-44 use it, 4% of those ages 45-54 and only 1% of those ages 55+ use it.
• While men and women use Twitter at the same levels (5% each), women are more likely to have a Facebook/MySpace account (52% vs. 45%).
• There's also an educational difference in usage of MySpace and Facebook. Two in five people with a high school degree or less (40%) have a Facebook or MySpace account, compared with 55% of those with some college and 52% of those with at least a college degree.

DIGGING DEEPER
To protect your company and employees, it's smart to have a policy to explains what's acceptable and what's not. To find out more, get the Executive Report - Facebook, Twitter and Your Employees: The Dangers of Social Networking

Comments

[Nicole]

What percentage of those interviewed use Twitter/Facebook for business? Many companies have facebook pages, and Twitter accounts. That may account for high usage during the day. I use Twitter a lot, but it's part of an overall marketing strategy not for my personal use.

[Mark Juleen]

@zappos on Twitter: "If you don't trust your employees to tweet freely, it's an employee or leadership issue, not an employee Twitter policy issue." 11:56 AM Jun 27th from txt