That’s a very interesting question.

Obviously it’s very easy to consider how to develop one’s own social media brand. We have Facebook – to tell our mate’s what we’ve been up to, LinkedIn – to look for new jobs (or have new jobs look for us), Twitter – to tell our contacts where we are on a moment by moment basis.

But how do we translate this very personal outlook on the world and our lives into a meaningful business perspective. More importantly, how do we safeguard our brands’ reputations in the hands of our staff and external agencies.

The press usually has at least one story in it about how an employee has underestimated the reach of Facebook/Twitter etc – either shoooting themselves or their employer in the foot by posting poorly thought through comments.

So how can we encourage our staff to use these new tools, but not risk undermining the brands we’ve spent so long building up?

Well, therein lies the conundrum – these conversations are going on anyway, it’s impossible to stop our staff using social networks, and also ethically wrong. So we need to develop frameworks to support and  guide individuals in their quest to talk.