Should my employees have access to social media at work?
There are two facets to consider in this answer: network security and employee productivity.
If employees are using corporate devices to access their social media sites and perform light web browsing, then your network security is definitely impacted. If employees are using their personal devices for social media and web browsing, then your network security may not be at risk, but your bandwidth (amount of internet available) may be impacted.
Even a simple scroll through the local news can lead employees to click on an errant link – something they think may be a link to a local event or another news story, but is instead a link to a browser hijack or drive-by-download of a virus or malware.
Best practice would be to train employees to not use corporate devices or the corporate network for web browsing. Many of our SMB clients have employees that access corporate data and applications through a remote desktop or cloud server; we also recommend that web browsing and social media never occur on that server connection.
If you have enterprise network gear, setup a guest wireless connection for personal devices. This will also allow you to throttle bandwidth to specific sites, so all of your bandwidth isn’t supporting one employee’s latest Netflix binge.
If you don’t have a company policy to outline employee expectations regarding the use of social media on breaks or at their discretion during work hours, take the time to develop one.
Looking for more resources on social media in the workplace? Try these:
Social Media Security Tips for Employees
Social Media Security Tips for Managers/Employers