Social Media Costs Companies Bigtime

Social media content created by and for your business could expose you to litigation, trash your reputation, and hurt the bottom line. Symantec's 2011 Social Media Protection Flash Poll shows that in the past year, the typical enterprise had nine social-media related incidents, such as employees posting confidential information to Facebook profiles; nearly all of these companies suffered some consequences. "Businesses know how important it is to protect and preserve email, IM, spreadsheets and other unstructured information. Now they need to recognize that information flowing through social networks is equally important," says Greg Muscarella, senior director of product management for Symantec's Information Management Group. "Employee education and training on the proper use of social media for business purposes is just as important as having the technology pieces in place." On behalf of Symantec, Applied Research surveyed 1,225 IT professionals in 33 countries during April 2011; for more about the survey, click here.