We’re only days into 2012, but here comes a fresh social media controversy. Noah Kravitz worked at a US based company called PhoneDog, from which he tweeted as @phonedog_noah, gaining 17,000 Twitter followers. He then left PhoneDog for another company. PhoneDog is suing him for keeping his followers and wants damages of $370,000.
Kravitz says that PhoneDog permitted him to use the account after he left, provided that he agreed to tweet on their behalf occasionally. He also changed his Twitter name to @noahkravitz. You can read more about this on Mashable.
PhoneDog Gate is being touted as a landmark social media case and it has thrown up some interesting issues about the distinctions between the professional and personal, the private and the public, and the rights of employers versus employees. It follows the case of former BBC correspondent Laura Kuennsberg earlier this summer, who on joining ITV changed the name of her account to @ITVLauraK , which led to speculation that the BBC had lost 60,000 followers to ITV.
My view is that the lines between social and professional networking were blurred further here by the use of a Twitter handle that included the name of the organisation as well as a person. On leaving I would also have gone for a clean break and wouldn’t have agreed to tweet on their behalf occasionally. It’s just simpler and easier that way. But I can appreciate that this is easy to say with hindsight.
What will happen when this case goes to court, and how could it affect us? Who really owns and controls corporate Twitter accounts- including those for charities- is a hotly debated issue. (It often comes up at NFP Tweetup). I know someone who invested a lot of time in building up his Twitter following. It wasn’t the main charity account but his own, although it did include elements of the charity’s branding. When he left his employer made it very clear that he was to surrender the account, which he duly did. I wouldn’t have gone so quietly, but then I probably wouldn’t have used any of my charity’s branding in my Twitter account either. I think it’s safer to make a distinction between my views and theirs.
The other issue is what is the value of your social media contacts? PhoneDog say that $370,000 is based on $2.50 per follower per month since Kravtiz left them, but I’m not sure where the $2.50 comes from. How would your charity measure the value of each follower?
I hope that this case doesn’t set a wider precedent for employers’ rights in social media. Social media is just one channel for a relationship. It’s not a form of voodoo that magically keeps your stakeholders entranced by your brand. Last year a UK court issued an order for an employee who resigned to start their own consultancy to hand over details of all of his LinkedIn contacts to his ex-employer, as well as contracts and receipts to show that none of them became clients of his. Again, social media isn’t the issue per se here; it’s that it conveniently left a digital trail which may indicate if he had poached clients. I don’t condone unethical behaviour but there is something about this judgement which makes me uncomfortable. In future, will organisations state in their social media policies that all employees’ LinkedIn contacts are really theirs?
This is about more than who owns the contacts; it’s about trust and control. My own employer, Lasa, has been very supportive of my blogging and tweeting. They trust me not to say anything that would compromise them, and in turn I am happy to promote what Lasa does. The PhoneDog case also shows how organisations cannot outsource responsibility for social media and must have policies in place about it. Even the CEO needs to know what these are. I’m not talking about who tweets; the senior management team need to understand what’s going on and what the risks, as well as the rewards, could be. In my view PhoneDog had a responsibility to harness the value of the relationships Kravitz had with his Twitter following earlier. I like the way the BBC resolved the problem of Laura Kuennsberg’s account by permitting her to change the name of her account if she was clear about where she was going and introduced her followers to her successor. This was a sensible solution that created goodwill.
Ultimately this debate comes down to an issue that is even bigger than social media, and which existed long before it was invented. How much does your employer expect from you, and how much are you willing to give? Only you and the organisation you work for can answer that question.