How To: Protecting Your Business’ Social Media [e155]

Nasir and Matt start the week by explaining how a business can protect its social media accounts and what to do when an employee leaves who has access to social media accounts. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our business law podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist for your listening benefit. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: And we have some construction next-door. I don’t know, we should do something about that, Matt. It’s getting in the way of our podcast. MATT: Yeah, I know. I recommended the cease and desist letter but I guess they haven’t responded to it yet. NASIR: Yeah, when is that going to get there? Well, at least we should mail it out today. See how that goes. MATT: Mail out, yeah. It seems like it’d be kind of counterproductive mailing it out. It’s right next-door so you would have to go somewhere to mail it and then they would deliver it right next to the spot where you’re located. NASIR: I would pass by their door on the way to the post office. MATT: Yeah, that happens sometimes. I’ve actually thought about that before and I’ve mailed things out in the same, like, really close to where my office is but you have to mail it out. So, it’s just kind of weird in that sense. NASIR: I don’t know if it’s a myth but isn’t there some kind of federal law that prohibits you from actually delivering mail into a federal mailbox receptacle of someone’s home? MATT: Yes, I got in trouble for that in high school. My friend and I, we went around to a neighbourhood and we had to deliver flyers for the pizza place that we were working at. We were supposed to go up to every door and put it on the door. I forget exactly where we were supposed to do it. But then, the driveways are really long so we just got tired of it so we just started to… NASIR: Put it in the post box, right? MATT: Yeah, we started putting it in people’s mailboxes and then the business got a call saying that we can’t do that because it’s against the law. NASIR: Almost got arrested. That’s your big brush with the law, right? MATT: Yeah, actually got charged with 80 counts of a federal crime, but that’s fine. NASIR: Mail fraud. MATT: Pretty serious. NASIR: “This wasn’t delivered by my postman! This is from a pizza place down the road.” MATT: It did work, though. We got a lot of business from that neighbourhood that week. So, pretty good overall, positive experience for the company. NASIR: Well, I don’t know. In California and elsewhere in urban places, it seems like mailboxes are kind of going to the wayside now. MATT: Oh, yeah. NASIR: They all have, like, central facilities where you have to go walk down the street and pick it up now and things like that. MATT: Yeah, it’s definitely shifting. But I think that’s in part because of the presence of online ways to do things. NASIR: That’s a great transition, yeah. MATT: It wasn’t even purposeful with me telling that story how I was supposed to go delivering flyers. Nowadays, we might just use social media – well, not that pizza place because it’s closed down but, if it was still around, it wouldn’t have either because it never did anything proactive. NASIR: Wow. Ouch. MATT: If it wanted to and if it was still in existence, yeah, it could use some social media to reach its customers. So, I guess, let’s say I was in that situation and we were using social media, but I was the one in charge of all the social media accounts, like I said, I’m not an owner, I’m just an employee there, and they probably would put me in charge of social media and so it’s a conundrum for employers because you put one of your employees, maybe someone who’s even really low down on the totem pole, to be in charge of the social media accounts and then, you know, something might happen and then you’re looking at the employee leaves or there’s some dispute or whatever, you have to look at who owns these accounts. So,

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