Who owns your Twitter profile – employer or employee?
Whilst most employment contracts explicitly prohibit employees taking copyrighted assets with them when parting ways with their employer, it is unclear as to whether social media assets like Facebook pages or Twitter profiles are covered by such clauses.
Some companies that have parted company with senior staff have seen their Twitter accounts go with them. That can have serious implications.
In the automotive industry, the importance of managing brands online is clear. BMW last year took control – in a collaborative and sensitive way, rather than via a hostile takeover – of the base BMW Facebook page.
BMW’s Facebook page had around 1.4 million fans at the time. BMW has been very active in creating content and managing the page and it now has more than 4.6 million fans.
However, the desire of automotive brands to control the Twitter profiles of their employees – which often purport to be explicitly representing the company and its views – is less obvious.
In the States, Ford’s Scott Monty has more followers and is more influential on both Klout and Peer Index than Ford’s corporate account, which he also runs. However, if Scott were to leave Ford, would he be able to take his 50,000-plus followers with him, perhaps even to a different automotive brand?
Anecdotal consensus seems to be that if an employee is tweeting under only their own name, there is no way a brand could seek to claim ownership of such a profile. Conversely, an employee running a branded feed would pretty obviously not be able to take the profile with them if they left. However, the situation becomes somewhat murky when considering Twitter profiles that combine both employee and brand names.
In the past six months, the automotive PR industry in the UK has seen two senior personnel – one at Hyundai and one at Honda – move to new roles at rival firms and take their previously branded Twitter profiles with them.
Whilst there is absolutely nothing wrong with this, it raises an important question about whether the rights to Twitter profiles containing brand names ultimately rest with the employer, or the employee responsible for the content.
Outside of the automotive industry other firms Comcast for instance have a 
clear approach to the issue, which has pointers for all.
Frank Eliason best known for running the @Comcastcares Twitter account is a good example. When he left the cable firm for Citibank the @Comcastcares was taken over by someone else (Bill Gerth). There was a line of social media succession, so to speak, and the account stayed in the family.
What do people think? It is an issue that affects the whole industry and has serious implications for businesses and their social media profiles.
Tom Callow is an account manager at Automotive PR and maintains the company’s Twitter profile @AutomotivePR.
All Comments
There’s a parallel between Twitter accounts and traditional columns in print, I’d have thought, where there must be lots of legal precedent. One that spring to mind is the mid-90s Robert X Cringely lawsuit: http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/cringely.html
Tom, a great example of the current social media consequences we’re seeing as a result of the smartphone explosion. Anytime, anyplace, anywhere (with apologies to Martini) from your iPhone/BlackBerry and no-one to check the words before you hit ‘send’.
Without guidelines and policies companies can hardly blame employees for taking the lead and ‘going for it’.
It will come back to haunt those brands who don’t grasp the nettle now..
Of course, no-one actually ‘owns’ the followers. The issue for them is whether they are following the person or the brand. If they are really into a brand, then they aren’t going to follow an individual who shifts companies.
The Scott Monty issue was evident very early when there was no Ford account on Twitter, and consequently lots of criticism about the personality over the company.
For PR practitioners, it is a reminder to manage your online contacts in the same way that used to be the case with the little black book.
Mind you, there used to be legal debate about who owned a PR person’s media contacts before the days when lists were readily bought and managed on databases.
Absolutely no question of ‘ownership’ of followers – and not even ‘ownership’ of accounts, since Twitter has ultimate power over all accounts anyway and has the power to suspend or shut them down.
The point about rationale for following is, I think, very important. For example, I suspect many people follow the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg (who has ‘BBC’ in her profile name) because she is a BBC correspondent. It’s hard to see how the BBC wouldn’t have at least some ground on which to claim it has some right to force her to hand it over to her replacement.
I don’t think there will ever be a line drawn on this issue and suspect it will just come down to individual employment contracts.
I guess it’s all about absolute clarity, Tom -saying who you are, who you work for, which hat you’re wearing. I’d be reluctant to put company ‘xyz’ in my Twitter profile, for instance, in case I DID move on in time: but there’s nothing wrong with dropping it into the bio.
I wonder how Kuenssberg will fare if she moves to, say, Sky News..?
R
True – the bio is exactly that and can obviously be about where you work and what you do etc. I guess the handle is the most obvious element of ‘brand’ on Twitter, so what it says/contains is seen as more important and thus contentious should it change!
I guess I have a nuch more global opinion on truth and information,and identity. I believe we are ALL each other and whatever I say resonates with different people in different way. The knowledge and learning is out there. What’s important is getting the word out(not if i can make money;)I can’t “control” others actions,so I won’t obsess about it. As long as I get them thinking and learning and searching for the TRUTH,I’ve done my part;)Thanks to the “twit” (a takeoff on Seinfeld) for all they do;)
I think most employers would like to think they can control your actions if they’re paying you to act…
I think the key point is: Is the employer paying for the message to be put out there?
If so, then the feed should probably be named appropriately to show the paid interest (ie… [Tweeter's Name]at[Company Name]. And if this is the case it negates any question of ownership. It is clearly owned by the named organisation.
If the feed is personal and not being built under company money there is no implied ownership by anybody other than the Tweeter.
I question the users who put the company web site link in their profile, followed a note that tweets are their own thoughts and do not reflect the organisation they are employed by. Why not just leave out the company URL?
Interesting point…I suppose in most cases (except promoted tweets etc.) it’s not that the content has been specifically paid for, but that the employee is being paid and it’s part of what they’re doing within their job.
I agree that if the feed is entirely personal, then there shouldn’t be a question of ownership. The one exception might be if an individual was being paid solely to run a certain profile and named it using only their name, rather than the brand/company. Although arguably it’s the company’s imperative to ensure their name/brand is included…
I suppose it is expect a reasonable solution to this. Like, a Twitter account in the name of a person belongs to the person, and an account using a company name like BritainLoans or trademark belongs to the company or trademark holder.
A person’s name is important to them. If they go to another employer they take their own name. If employers don’t want famous employees to take their followers with them when they leave, then the company should set up the account and require the employee to use it for professional purposes.
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