Balancing Social Media Rules
Striking a Balance with Social Media Rules: How to Manage Social Media in Regulated Industries for PR Clients
Gene Marbach, group vice president and IR blogger at Makovsky + Company, elaborates: "There are disclosure regulations in place via the SEC's RegFD that already cover social media," he says. "Their take is to think of it as another media form—just because it's social doesn't mean you can skirt or violate already existing disclosure rules. Basically, it boils down to putting your material news out over the wires and it being broadly disseminated. Similarly, if your material hasn't been disclosed through the normal channels, you can't reveal it via social media." That said, Marbach expects an eventual liberalization of disclosure issues related to social media—but won't put a date on it.
So what's his advice? "While you might not ever be prosecuted for violation of RegFD, you can help the corporate reputation by creating an environment of compliance via a social media policy, thereby showing that your staff plays by the rules," says Marbach. "This gives you protection in event there's inadvertent disclosure—the SEC can then say you play by the rules and it was mistake. If you foster that environment of compliance, you may get a pass."
He also reminds readers that you should include the same standard disclaimers in social media that you use in other communications channels.
2. Recognize that FDA regulation also impacts search. "Health and pharma clients and the PR people who service them also should know that the FDA held hearings in November and one of the big points that came out of it was that the methods for treating search and search results as proposed by Google will be changed this year," says Patel.
What does that mean to you as a PR professional? "More PR people are releasing social media releases and press releases catering to search engines. So, we'll have to be careful with what the search results display when someone searches for a term or phrase in the pharma and healthcare sectors," says Patel. "That basically means that you can't be misleading in health related search. Questionable practices could run into FDA regulatory challenges when they release guidelines around this in Q4."
Patel adds that Google made a presentation during the hearings showing the pullback of spending on search advertising that came from the pharma industry immediately following an earlier incident in which the FDA issued warning letters to a handful of pharma companies related to their search advertising practices. "The loss was in the hundreds of millions of dollars," he says.
3. Post social media policies and look at best practices. Marketers should institute written policies and procedures concerning the rules by which their employees engage in social media participation, say Lasky and Kibel. At minimum, a blogging policy, for example, should:
▪ Include permitted conduct, encouraged conduct, prohibited conduct, the company's rights and remedies.
▪ Educate employees not to violate others' intellectual property rights (copyrights, trademarks).
▪ Prohibit disclosure of confidential information.
▪ Ensure that discussions regarding competitors are not overly-negative.
▪ Prohibit employees from posting any objectionable content.
▪ Educate employees to disclose that their statements reflect their own opinions, not the company's.
▪ Ensure that employees disclose their connection to the company when posting about its products or services.
Marbach advises looking to companies like Dell as models of what to do. "Not only do they leverage social media smartly for financial communications, but I also recommend reviewing their social media policy online," he suggests...
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