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Can Disgruntled Former Employees Blow Up Your Social Media and Martech Accounts?
54 Plays6 years ago
How easy have you made it for an employee to compromise your social media and martech accounts? In today's episode, we're covering employee separation in the marketing department.
- Stacy will share her personal story.
- We'll discuss the need to clarify, in writing, who owns the social media accounts.
- We'll chat about why you need to write employee separation procedures specific to marketing technology and social media accounts.
- We'll talk about why you might consider adding corporate social media information to nondisclosure, confidentiality and non-solicitation agreements. (We aren't lawyers, but these guys are. Read their thoughts on this topic: https://www.schwabe.com/newsroom-publications-12811.)
- We'll talk about who owns an individual's followers when a person has built a following as part of social selling or employee advocacy programs and how Twitter seems to lack an explicit policy.
- We'll also touch on two notable lawsuits where employers have gone after former employees who left with sizable personal followings: PhoneDog vs. Kravitz and Roanoke Times vs. Andy Bitter.
- We'll share LinkedIn's User Agreement, Section 2.2 along with Facebook's Terms of Use and Facebook's Principles.
- And we'll share our personal (not legal) opinions about who owns an individual's followers.
If you would like to try some of the team password managers mentioned in this episode, here are the links:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to the Marketing Mix Podcast with Alaina and Stacey. Each week we'll bring you ideas that you can implement in your own marketing strategy. We'll share what we know as well as advice from industry experts, some of whom will join us from time to time here on the show. Are you ready to mix it up? Let's get started.
00:00:22
Speaker
Hey there, this is Stacey Jackson. And I'm Elena Jackson. We're co-founders of Jackson Marketing. We're also sisters. And we're bringing you episode five of the Marketing Mix. Elena, what is today's episode about? So today we're going to be doing something a little bit different.
Understanding Employee Separation in Marketing Tech
00:00:39
Speaker
We're going to be talking about HR and the technology side of marketing management and how you protect your brand and tech stack during employee separation.
00:00:48
Speaker
Don't you just love that term, employee separation? In other words, we're talking about when you fire someone or they get laid off or leave of their own accord. Right. And you, Stacy, have some firsthand insight into what happens during that employee separation because you were laid off a few years back. And what happens when withholding onto those keys to the Martek kingdom? I sure do.
00:01:15
Speaker
But first let's go to break and then I'll share my story and the lessons that I learned that I can share firsthand with marketers.
00:01:24
Speaker
And we are back. And one of the first things that we want to talk about now that we're back from break is Stacy's situation that she had when she was laid off back in 2011. So Stacy, can you tell us a little bit about that? I sure can, Elena. As you know, I had worked for this company for the majority of my adult life at that point. And the company was sold. And with getting sold,
00:01:52
Speaker
the sales and marketing team at My employer were let go so you know that kind of stinks But what made it stink even more is we were all let go with no severance boo Right
00:02:10
Speaker
But even worse, if I had been a devious little devil, I could have walked away and just blown up the social media accounts and the HubSpot account because nobody, nobody except for me, had the passwords and logins to all of the bar tech stuff from my employer side and
00:02:33
Speaker
The acquiring company didn't have anywhere near the number of followers on social media that we did, so I could have made a big old mess for them. But instead, I took the high road. I encourage you, if you're ever in the situation where you're the only one with the keys to the kingdom and you get laid off to take the high road, I contacted HR and said, hey guys,
00:02:58
Speaker
Do you care that I have all these passwords
Ethical Handling of Account Access Post-Layoff
00:03:00
Speaker
and logins? I think somebody needs to take over the corporate Facebook and LinkedIn and Twitter accounts. I emailed my HubSpot rep from my personal email and told her the situation and asked her to get in touch with HR to walk them through how to
00:03:18
Speaker
manage the site and all that. It was just kind of crazy. Were they kind of like, oh, yeah, that's probably a good idea. I don't even know what they were thinking, to be honest. And to a degree, I really didn't care. I just wanted to be ethical and get rid of the responsibility so that if anything ever did happen to those accounts, it wouldn't be my problem. And one thing back to what you were saying.
00:03:48
Speaker
the company was purchased by another company. And one thing that a lot of companies need to consider is marketing is typically the first area to go and they hold the keys to your kingdom, to your branding online. Right. The funny thing is about the company where I was working before they got purchased, there was an extensive employee separation policy and IT was responsible for
00:04:12
Speaker
deactivating email accounts, making sure that phone access was removed, taking people out of the other systems, but nobody, nobody else in the company except for maybe one other person who they also got let go, had any idea of the accounts and the passwords that
00:04:33
Speaker
we were using for marketing. Yeah. And I worked at the same company and we were dealing with data of the client. So those pieces were
00:04:44
Speaker
tight and set up properly for employee separation. But most companies just don't even think about the social side of marketing and the passwords that you have access to and how someone could really tarnish a brand's name with that access. And probably a lot of huge brands out there know the importance, but some of your B2B brands or smaller brands just don't even think about
00:05:13
Speaker
Oh, I need to get this in writing and make sure we have this buttoned up in case anything ever happens. So what do you think the first step that brands need to take when it comes to employee separation and their MarTech stack is,
Tools for Managing Account Access
00:05:28
Speaker
Alayna? So I think the first thing you have to consider is you've got to clarify in writing who owns the account.
00:05:36
Speaker
While I know that it probably seems obvious that, well, the company owns the account if it's the corporate count, but I think you have to really consider that because you are giving someone the keys to your kingdom on your corporate accounts and they could easily change
00:05:52
Speaker
the name on the Twitter account and the passwords and everything over to their personal account if there's some bad blood there. So you have to identify in writing who owns those corporate accounts especially.
00:06:07
Speaker
Yeah. Like I, I had the only login password to the company Twitter account. I could have said, Oh, I'm going to take all these followers and make a mine. But I didn't because I'm a good person and, uh, not everybody is going to act that way. So you got to take care of your brand. Exactly. So what's the next step that we need to take?
00:06:26
Speaker
So the next step kind of goes hand in hand with getting that written clarification down. It's you need to work with HR to develop an employee separation procedure when it comes to social media accounts and the marketing technology that people have access to. So work with your marketing department and maybe even IT depending on their involvement with the MarTech stack.
00:06:50
Speaker
Come up with what are the processes for when someone quits or if they're laid off? How do we go about revoking their access to different pieces of the MarTech Stack puzzle? So one solution, especially if your IT department isn't directly involved and there's no corporate kind of control over cutting people off, is to set up some team password managers. Elena, I think you had a few that you had mentioned to me. Why don't you go through those?
00:07:20
Speaker
Yeah, so we have actually used common key in the past, so that's one. There's also teampasswordmanager.com or lastpass.com. So those are some different things that you can look at to give access to your accounts to employees without them actually having the actual password and login information. Right.
00:07:42
Speaker
And some other options specific to social media include if you're using a marketing automation tool like HubSpot, you could go in and set up all the social media accounts and then grant permission to use those accounts to different users without actually handing over the passwords.
00:08:01
Speaker
Sprout Social and Hootsuite also would allow you to do that same kind of thing. So just make sure that you're taking steps to protect the accounts and you have a specific procedure in writing so that everyone knows what to do when an employee leaves the company, whether it's by their own choice or your choice.
00:08:24
Speaker
Lena, what's next?
Legal Aspects of Social Media Ownership
00:08:25
Speaker
I think the next thing you need to do is consider adding a corporate social media information to non-disclosures, confidentiality, and non-solicitation agreements because a lot of companies will consider customer lists associated with your corporate social media accounts to be trade secrets. So you've got to protect that information and you want to take formal steps for that.
00:08:47
Speaker
Right. So that's a good point about the corporate accounts because the company should own those followers and you don't want someone to walk away with them. But what about employee advocacy programs or social selling when individual employees are using social media and in turn building up their personal brands to get business and recognition for the brand?
00:09:13
Speaker
What do you think there, Alina? Who owns those followers? Yeah, so that's where it gets kind of sticky, right? Because modern selling today requires people to be doing social selling. A lot of companies want employing advocacy, employing engagement.
00:09:28
Speaker
and you're asking your employees to really get involved in spreading the word about your company. So what they're doing is they're taking their own personal brands and growing them while at the same time growing your brand awareness. And that's where a lot of these things kind of get sticky. And the reason why is because of situation like phone dog versus Kravitz.
00:09:56
Speaker
So Noah Kravitz was the editor and social media specialist for PhoneDog. He left the company and he took his Twitter account, which has 17,000 followers with him.
00:10:09
Speaker
And his Twitter handle was phone dog underscore Noah. So it wasn't the corporate account. It was his personal account, but he was being portrayed as phone dog Noah. So what phone dog thought, well, those followers belong to us. And I'll tell you what.
00:10:29
Speaker
Each follower is worth $2.50 to us, so we're going to go after you for $340,000. And they settled out of court, but still that just begs people to consider where or who owns those followers on those personal accounts.
00:10:46
Speaker
I did some social selling training a few years back and a lot of the people at the company would on their Twitter handles was company XYZ and their name. You know, so a lot of people are doing this type of situation. And I think it's very important to for both parties involved, the individual in the company to identify who actually owns those followers in these types of situations.
00:11:10
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And the phone dog versus Kravitz case was several years ago, but it's still a situation, especially when it comes to Twitter, that we're seeing cases go to court even in 2018. The Roanoke Times is trying to sue a former reporter for his
00:11:32
Speaker
Twitter account because he had used it when he was a reporter for that paper and he has over 27,000 followers. So they're trying to sue on the basis of trade secret and that they should
00:11:46
Speaker
own those people that he cultivated as followers during his time as a reporter for them. Uh, we don't know exactly where that will end up, but you know, just something to think about. You don't want to be stuck in a situation where you're creating even more bad blood with that employee who's leaving and uh, you don't want to have to go to court about it either. So,
00:12:12
Speaker
What did the platforms themselves say? Obviously, since people are going to court over Twitter, there's no clear statement. We tried to find one and could not, but LinkedIn and Facebook do have a little bit more clearer terms. Alaina, what does LinkedIn say about your
00:12:31
Speaker
actual personal account and followers. And I want to preface this with I am not a lawyer, so I'm just interpreting what I understand. And you're not even interpreting, you're reading it. Well, yeah, true. I am just reading.
00:12:46
Speaker
Okay, so on LinkedIn, section 2.2 states that as between you and others, including your employer, your account belongs to you. However, if services are purchased by another party for you, like recruiter seat bought by your employer, then the party paying for that service has the right to control access to and get reports on your use of such paid services. But they do not have rights to your personal account. Boom.
00:13:17
Speaker
one for the personal user right all right and as far as what facebook states in their terms of use which you had to agree to when you set up your um account you agreed that you will not transfer your account including any page or application you administer to anyone without first getting our written permission our meaning facebook so right there they don't want you giving away
00:13:45
Speaker
your account to someone else. So if you are an individual user, you can't just give away your face, your individual Facebook account, nor can you give away your page account. And we're going to talk about that in a minute too. But also on Facebook's principles, they state that people should own their information and people should have the freedom to decide with whom they will share their information and set privacy controls to protect those choices.
00:14:13
Speaker
Which I know is kind of funny when you think about Facebook's issues recently around privacy, right? But they do at least state these principles in writing. So again, neither of us are lawyers, but you could work with your corporate counsel to try and determine what that means with regard to employees using Facebook on your behalf. Now with that page,
00:14:39
Speaker
thing that they mentioned where you cannot transfer ownership of a page to someone else without their permission first. You should not give a freelancer or a lower level employee the authority to set up your brand's page for you.
00:14:58
Speaker
You need to do that so that they can't walk away with your page. Right. Because for those of you that don't know, a brand page on Facebook is associated to a personal account. So you want to make sure that the powers that be in the company, especially if you're a small company, just have the CEO or somebody have that page associated to their personal account on Facebook.
00:15:23
Speaker
You don't have to set it all up with the cover image and all that stuff. You can just set the page up to where it's live and then you can set your employee, your freelancer, whoever it is that's going to be working on your social media, give them access as an admin on the page.
00:15:39
Speaker
And you can do that through Facebook's business module. That way you can add people as different user levels or add freelancers or an agency to manage your page and still control, have ultimate control over who has access. And you can, from there,
00:15:59
Speaker
sever access to people who are no longer working with you. Right, but you should own your company's page. Exactly. And I know we've talked primarily in terms of employee separation, but this goes for anybody that you're working with, whether it's a freelancer or an agency. Take those steps to protect your brand and make sure that people can't just go rogue. Right, right. It's so important because it can go downhill fast.
00:16:29
Speaker
So, Elena, I know we've talked through what Facebook and LinkedIn says and the fact that we could not find something that Twitter stated explicitly.
Ownership of Followers: Individual vs Company?
00:16:38
Speaker
So let's just talk about our opinions. And again, not legal opinions, just personal opinions. Who owns a person's followers on Twitter, even if they cultivated those followers in service to the company?
00:16:53
Speaker
Your opinion. So as far as being a personal account, I believe the person, individual, should own that account and those followers because they put the work into it. The followers are following them because they have a relationship with them. They are following them because of the personality and the information that they shared. And I think that that belongs to them. It doesn't belong to the company.
00:17:23
Speaker
Now, if it's the company corporate page.
00:17:26
Speaker
then I think it's different and it, those should stay with the company. Yes. I agree. And like in that phone dog or even the Andy Bitter and the Roanoke times, the people that brought those followers on board with them, like you said, they are interested in what Andy Bitter had to say or Noah Kravitz had to say. And the fact that they were associated to a company may or may not have played a part, but the bigger part was following that person.
00:17:56
Speaker
engaging with that person, at least in my opinion. Right. And one thing that companies need to consider is if you only have one person primarily that is the brand or the face for your brand, then you might be at risk of losing a lot of awareness about your brand if they decide to leave or something like that. So it's important that you don't put everything into
00:18:25
Speaker
one person as as your brand because if they decide to leave or god forbid they get hit by a truck then you've lost right all that awareness that's happening on social and while that person may still walk away with their followers if you've
00:18:45
Speaker
cultivated your employees and train them to be social advocates on your behalf and train your salespeople to do their best on social media for social selling, then yeah, you might take a hit when so-and-so leaves, but you've still got a social media army who are advocating on your behalf and can, you know, maybe make up or at least maintain the followers you have while you get more people
00:19:11
Speaker
trained and involved in social media on behalf of your company. Right. Right. You won't be left high and dry. And I know a lot of people may say, well, I don't want to train my employees to do this because they'll leave and take their followers with them.
00:19:25
Speaker
But, you know, what if you don't train them and they stay and nothing great happens ever on social media? You're just missing out.
Building Trust Through Employee Advocacy
00:19:36
Speaker
Exactly. And another important point is the Edelman trust barometer for several years has said,
00:19:41
Speaker
that people trust people more than they trust brands. So it's so important. Just get your employees out there and involved with social media because they're more likely to gain trust from your customers and your prospects than your logo will. Word. That is so true because people do trust people more than they trust brands. Yeah, exactly.
00:20:04
Speaker
So Elena, any parting thoughts on employee separation and what to do when the you know what goes down and someone has to leave the company?
Effective Procedures for Account Access Management
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's just important to have that plan in place and getting these password solutions together so that when someone does part, it's an easy process and you just take them out of the password management system.
00:20:30
Speaker
and they don't then have access to everything anymore. And just knowing that you have things written down so that you're covered, both parties are covered, and there's no question as to who owns what. And as far as my advice to those who may be separated, especially if you're separated involuntarily, whether getting fired or being laid off, don't blow up the accounts and don't blow up your career.
00:20:57
Speaker
I didn't do it and I'm glad I didn't do it. Yeah, you could really hurt yourself with future employers. Stay ethical, take the high road and go to your next career or start your own business like I did with Elena. Right? Right.
Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement
00:21:13
Speaker
So that's it for today folks. I hope you got some good information and insights out of what we discussed.
00:21:20
Speaker
Don't forget that you can connect with both of us on Twitter. I'm S-T-A-C-Y underscore Jax J-A-X. Again, Stacey underscore Jax.
00:21:30
Speaker
And Elena is A-L-A-N-N-A underscore J-A-X, Elena underscore Jax. Or you can look both of us up on LinkedIn. If you've got the Anchor app on your smartphone, go there and leave us a voicemail and we might include your comment or question on next week's show. Thanks for joining us. This is Stacey signing off. And Elena, I hope you have a good week.
00:21:58
Speaker
The Marketing Mix is hosted by Stacey Jackson and Elena Jackson of, you guessed it, Jackson Marketing. If you need help with your inbound marketing efforts, visit us at JacksonMarketingServices.com.