By now, many of us have seen a TikTok video filmed at someone’s workplace – a “day in the life” video, someone complaining about their coworkers, supervisors, or customers, or someone talking about an unrelated subject while at the office. And a relatively new platform, BeReal, goes a step further by encouraging users to provide an unfiltered view into their “real” everyday life at random moments throughout the day. Of course, such organic social media clips can be a valuable tool that helps market your brand and build stronger employee relationships – but where do you draw the line? These posts might include employees performing their duties during a meeting with co-workers or at a workstation, which raises privacy and confidentiality concerns. Moreover, employees flocking to social media to discuss their bosses and general work experiences – positive or negative – could lead to other troubles. When these videos go viral, employees may become unofficial spokespersons for your organizations, influencing the conversation about work norms and creating trends that impact employers globally. With these changing dynamics, you may want to set new guidelines for social media use while ensuring your policies don’t run afoul of employment and labor laws. Here are four tips for updating your social media policies to reflect this modern era and stay on top of the latest developments. 1. Ensure Policies Reflect Recent Trends In the early days of widespread social media use, your policies may have simply prohibited employees from using company equipment to post non-work-related content online and required work posts to be business appropriate. But social media use is rapidly evolving in new ways that you may not have anticipated when your policies were first drafted. What should you know about current trends as you consider policy changes? For one thing, TikTok has quickly grown in popularity over the past two years with more than a billion monthly active users – which means your employees are likely using the platform and are probably doing so during work hours. The app allows users to upload videos from five seconds to 10 minutes. TikTok then filters videos through their feed using an algorithm and shares them with other users. These videos may receive millions of views, comments, likes, and shares. While TikTok is popular, it’s obviously not the only platform featuring employees on the job. Unlike TikTok – where users are hoping to go viral – the BeReal app takes a less sensational approach. BeReal doesn’t have filters, hashtags, or even followers. To view someone’s BeReal, you have to request to be their friend. The app encourages users to provide an unfiltered view into their “real” everyday life. Each day at a different time, the app simultaneously notifies all users to “BeReal” and share a photo within two minutes, regardless of their location. The camera on the app will then take a photo of the user with the front-facing camera while also taking a photo on the back camera, creating a BeReal snapshot to share with friends. This app can be potentially problematic for employers. Many times, BeReal alerts occur during work hours, so users end up taking pictures of their workplace or work area. Because BeReal is shared among friends, the app may create a sense of safety, and users might forget to censor confidential information. Moreover, while BeReal doesn’t have the same “viral” nature as TikTok, that doesn’t stop users from sharing their posts beyond the app on other platforms. This trend illustrates that the new generation of workers values the transparency these apps provide, with many not considering that their candid photos may also reveal company information. OVERSHARING IN THE WORKPLACE? WHY YOUR COMPANY MAY NEED A TIKTOK AND BEREAL POLICY By Fisher Phillips 28
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