Employee Use of Social Media – Addressing the Risks

Copyright 2010, Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP

Originally published in Blakes Bulletin on Intellectual Property–Social Media Series, October 2010

There is no doubt that social media are very powerful tools in shaping an organization's image. Given the ability to share information quickly and with a wide audience, businesses are increasingly embracing social media by, for example, creating Facebook pages to advertise products and to interact directly with their customers or clients, or using Twitter to engage in public relations campaigns. However, organizations are not the only ones using social media.

By mid-2010, almost 50% of all Canadians were participating in FACEBOOK. Many of those users are also employees of businesses and other organizations. There are also numerous other social networking sites and other types of social media sites which allow employees to join, post, blog, comment, contribute and otherwise share information.