In August of 2009 the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics (SCCE) and the Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) jointly fielded research into how compliance and ethics professionals were managing the exploding rise of social media.

Then, as now, the usage of sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn was exploding. In addition, Facebook and Twitter were seeing dramatic increases in usage by adults, changing them from vehicles for teens to communicate to platforms used by multiple generations.

That trend has continued. LinkedIn connects executives around the world, and Facebook’s user base is so large that, were it a country, it would be the third most populous nation in the world.

Adding to the complexity of the situation, social media has also now become a marketing tool. Twitter feeds and corporate pages on Facebook have become common for many companies.

With this growth and evolution have emerged great risks. Inappropriate online behavior has cost individuals their jobs. Companies have sought to discipline behavior of employees with mixed results, and in one case the National Labor Relations Board weighed in, making it clear that workers have the right to complain to each other about working conditions, even on Facebook.

To assess how compliance professionals are managing the use of social media, the SCCE and HCCA fielded a new survey in February and March 2011.

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