The Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics and the Health Care Compliance Association conducted a survey among compliance and ethics professionals in late August 2009 to see what employers are doing about the use of these sites by their employees.
They got back almost 800 responses from their members using an online survey tool.
- 50% of respondents reported that their company does not have a policy for employee online activity outside of the workplace
- Of those companies that do have a policy, 34% include it in a general policy on online usage
- Of those companies that do have a policy, just 10% specifically address the use of social network sites
“While the data indicates that many organizations have had to discipline employees for improper activity online, the fears may outweigh the actual risks. A survey asking about discipline regarding improper email usage would likely yield much higher numbers.”
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Compliance: What Are Companies Doing? 
Feedback from our customers, wanting to control not just how their users had access to social networks, but also what their users were posting, led to the develop of technology to do just this. We launched USG3.0 today.
USG 3.0 provides granular control of not only Web sites and applications but also the content posted to blogs, wikis, webmail and social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Such content can be monitored, secured and recorded – reducing outbound data leakage and enabling compliance with industry regulations, legal discovery requirements, and corporate policy standards.
http://www.facetime.com/pr/pr090930.aspx
@Sarah
I consult with independent SEC registered investment advisers, and the overwhelming majority want to use social media tools properly and with compliance in mind.
USG3.0 is a compelling piece of technology that certainly helps with social media compliance, but with a price tag north of $9,000, USG3.0 is out of reach for many of these advisers. A large portion of the RIA market is made up of sole proprietors or part of a small or medium businesses that can’t afford that kind of price tag, especially considering the unknown return on investment in the social media space.