How To Keep Business Tweets Out Of Court | Legal issues could catch up to corporate twittering
Photo/Shaun Tolson
Brian Rice, webmaster at Percy's in Worcester,
manages the store's Twitter account.
Social networking web sites offer businesses a new medium by which to connect with potential customers, but according to a local attorney, in some cases — specifically when using Twitter — companies that are quick to dive in may find themselves caught in a current of legal issues.
“The thing about Twitter, it’s an old problem in a new form,” said James C. Donnelly Jr. of the Worcester-based law firm of Mirick O’Connell. “It begs people to talk before they think.”
E-mail had the same affect when it still was a novel concept, Donnelly says, but with Twitter, the immediacy of communication and the public audience heightens the risk.
“The big problem is that people forget and put into messages by mistake things that are confidential,” he said.
Playing It Safe
That’s not to say that businesses, both large and small, can’t successfully tap into the Twitter-sphere. But not all are as concerned about the possible legal ramifications.
“We would never call our attorneys and ask them to read our Twitter posts before we post them,” said Joe Santa Maria, the general manager of Worcester Fitness.
But for the Worcester health club, a small company with a single person who has access to its Twitter account (Santa Maria), legal counsel is unnecessary. Yet Donnelly says it’s that same type of thinking that will get a larger corporation into trouble, specifically one that allows numerous people to access and tweet.
For Worcester Fitness, which tweets only on occasion (59 posts since Jan. 20), the prospect of managing Twitter and avoiding legal issues is easy.
For a major corporation that posts nearly 40 tweets in a single day, the task becomes more arduous and potentially laden with more risk.
Worcester Fitness has another advantage, as well: Santa Maria has prior experience with the social networking phenomenon. He also works as an independent musician and says the music industry morphed into an interactive, online community years ago, which made Worcester Fitness’s introduction to Twitter and other social networking sites easier.
“I put everything toward the music business that I do,” Santa Maria said. “That’s how we test-marketed everything.”
But not every local company has that advantage.
Shot In The Dark
Josh Ahearn, the sales manager at Ahearn Equipment in Spencer, says he’s been using Twitter for six months but that he generally posts only enough to keep the company’s name on people’s minds.
“I’m not really putting a whole lot out there,” he said. “Most of what I say is trite and simple.”
Because of that, he says he doesn’t really give any thought to the legal ramifications of his posts, but he does say that he’s careful about what he writes.
“When I post something, I do understand that anybody and everybody could see this,” he said. “Everything is a reflection of our company.”
Ahearn Equipment has yet to fully embrace Twitter, he says, because the web site’s demographic and general audience is much too broad.
“Twitter is more national in scope,” he said. “I haven’t really figured out how to make Twitter work really well for us.”
But he’s making an effort to use the site because, he says, you never know when it might come in handy.
And if the company did grow, and Ahearn Equipment suddenly employed numerous people to monitor and update the company’s Twitter page, that’s when Ahearn said he’d begin to consider possible legal issues.
“I’d be more concerned if it wasn’t just me doing it, if we had other people posting,” he said.
“At that point, we’d have to put more guidelines in place.”
Learning As They Go
One could imagine that Twitter might easily get a company into a legal battle over false advertising.
But even for a local company that predominantly advertises sales and promotional events on Twitter, that concern doesn’t exist.
“Most of the stuff that we tweet about, different events and promotions that we have, it’s not something where we have to put an asterisk at the end of each tweet,” said Brian Rice, webmaster at Percy’s, a Worcester-based appliance and electronics retailer.
Percy’s looks at its Twitter audience — those that follow the company’s updates on the web site — as an elite group of customers and will often post messages about upcoming sales on Twitter a week in advance.
“There was never a thought that we might be liable because we know that what we’re offering is true to our customers,” Rice said.
Donnelly says that because Twitter is a web site accessible to the general public, deals or promotions offered to Percy’s Twitter audience will not get the company into hot water.
Larger, homegrown companies with a Twitter presence like Flexcon, TJX Cos. and EMC Corp. all declined to participate for this story.
And while the smaller, local companies are getting their feet wet and avoiding any legal issues, it’s easy to see how companies with more size and scope could find themselves in over their heads.
There may be no local evidence of it just yet, but Donnelly says it’s only a matter of time.
“It may be hard for the average business to pay attention because twittering and monitoring it takes time,” he said. “The leaders are doing what they ought to be doing, but too many other people are just letting it happen and will have to live with the consequences.”
The way Santa Maria sees it, most companies are in the same boat, and that’s a good thing.
“That’s the best thing about this stuff…everybody is learning together,” he said.
But that also means that some will have to learn the hard way.
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