Questions About Employees Posting To Online Message Boards

from the does-it-matter? dept

A good article talking about an American Airlines employee, who on her free time responded to questions about American on message boards. The company has asked her to stop, and some of the people on the message boards are annoyed. The rest of the article looks at other company's policies on the matter. Most companies at least have people who lurk on message boards, and a few have people who's job it is to read the message boards and respond when necessary. While it can be a big job, I think a company can learn a lot about the public's perception from reading message boards - and having a person who can respond officially for the company shows that they're reading the posts and are responsive. While the lawyers (of course) all freak out about the liability issues of having a company representative talk up in cyberspace, I wouldn't be surprised if it became more common for larger companies to have it as an official position - though surrounded by a ton of legalese.