Is your company beginning to control your Facebook account?

Employers are joining the social media bandwagon and employees are being encouraged to engage with their company through social media. Do you think your employer has the right to claim your online activities? What's your take?

Suddenly an email appears in my Outlook Express from HR, asking me to login to my Facebook account at a certain time, and share a particular status update message on my personal account. Yes, my otherwise conservative company has allowed access to social media for an hour today, so all employees can get this FB viral started.

I wonder if this is the beginning of my Facebook account being controlled by my company. I had just recently been reading about this debate online, but now it was happening right here – in my face!

Jeanne Meister, co-founder of human resources research firm Future Workplace and co-author of the book, The 2020 Workplace says, companies like Dell, Intel, Unisys, GAP, Pepsi are not just training employees how to use social media, but how to represent the company to their friends, "What should you not be sharing? What can you share in a responsible way that helps the company build its brand in the market place?" says Meister. 

And that brings us to the more moot question – should companies be asking employees to promote their products or brands online? I wonder if that will soon be part of an employee's KRA? And should it?

With employers getting on to the social media bandwagon in a big way – and employees being encouraged to engage with their company through social media, it is a matter of time before companies start drawing out the guidelines, on what employees should have on their own personal social media.

Of course your company does not/ will not have access to your account – I remain hopeful on that! But yes, it may soon be directing you on the kind of activities you should be doing on your account. 

So do you think your employer has the right to claim your online activities? What's your take?