The Social Path

Could your employer confiscate your LinkedIn account if you left?

You might have heard the legal wrangling over a company that wants control of an ex-employee’s Twitter feed, but here’s a story that will really motivate you to beef up your passwords.

A company called Sawabeh Information Services is claiming it should own LinkedIn accounts used by at least two former employees. According to TechDirt, Sawabeh argues that these LinkedIn profiles are akin to rolodexes that were developed on company time.

The firm has already confiscated the account used by former partner Dr. Linda Eagle (who had apparently let other coworkers manage her account, which meant her password was easy for the company to access), but LinkedIn denied Sawabeh’s attempts to take over the account of another ex-employee.

While this debate is part of a far more complex legal battle over trade secrets and corporate backstabbing, it could end up setting an ominous precedent if Sawabeh is given control of employee LinkedIn profiles just because they were used for work.

As tech lawyer Venkat Balasubramani notes, though, there’s also the issue of LinkedIn’s terms of service, which restrict personal account access to the person who created the profile. That means Sawabeh could win in court but find the LinkedIn account closed for TOS violations.

For now, best to keep those passwords to yourself, talk to your HR manager for clarity on your company's policies and just generally avoid working for places that treat business in the information age like a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.

David Griner is the Director of Digital Content for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

Photo credit: TOKY Branding and Design on Flickr.

Three ways Facebook can lighten the load on admins.

Facebook has improved business pages and the administrator experience by leaps and bounds in the past year. We can now tag fans when replying in the comment section, have a separate notification application for each page, and easily access our pages from the newsfeed. Not to mention the improvements in analytics data and graphics which is another post altogether (that we covered here). 

But there are still some glaring and simple changes that Facebook could make to improve the administrator experience. 

Geo-Targeting Regions

When geo-targeting a Facebook ad, you set the ad to appear to an audience within a radius of a certain city or state - or multiples of both. When setting up a geo-targeted Facebook update, you have to individually add each city that falls in your chosen footprint. That can be a lot of work, especially if you'd like to target a region that spreads across multiple states (like the Gulf Coast, for example). I can't imagine a situation in which it wouldn't be helpful to target a post by a radius rather than selecting each possible city individually.

Custom Art and Descriptions for Linking to Tabs

At Luckie & Company, our Designers and Interactive Department work hard to build some seriously amazing Facebook applications. However, when linking to any tab within Facebook, the only art option is the page's profile picture and the page's description. At least when linking to websites off of Facebook you can edit the title and text and, at the very least, remove images from the link. But these are static when linking to a Facebook tab. It's strange that Facebook wouldn't provide this option seeing as they prefer to keep users on the site. 

Direct Messages from the Brand Rather Than Personal Account

In the last year Facebook added the option to "login" to Facebook as a business page, which is great. But this addition didn't come with the option to send message to users from the page. If I contact a fan privately, I have to reach out to them through my own personal account. I don't know about you, but with all the spam and viruses that get passed through Facebook, I'm hesitant to open any links or messages from unknown individuals. Not to mention, as an administrator, I prefer to represent the brand and not provide my personal profile or information to fans.

These are minor complaints compared to the changes and progress Facebook has made over the past year in improving the administrator experience. Still, I'd like to see these suggestions added to the list of improvements made in the next iteration of Facebook business pages.

What are some issues you face as a business page administrator or changes you'd like to see made?

Kammie Avant is a social media planner for Luckie & Company. You can contact her by e-mail or follow @KammieAvant on Twitter.

Photo credit: akunamatata on Flickr

Watch the Luckie Christmas Story and help a child enjoy the holidays.

At Luckie & Company, we love telling stories, especially if that story helps those in need.

This holiday season, we wanted to come up with a simple and creative way to engage people and donate money to charity. So, “A Luckie Christmas Story” was born — the tale of young Santa, a scruffy-faced, rotund kid teased by his classmates until a special gift changed his life. 
Each time the video is viewed, Luckie will donate $1 to Toys for Tots (up to $5,000).

Click here to view the story and share it with friends and family. The more the link is shared and viewed, the more we can help brighten a child’s Christmas. Please spread the word, because you never know when a simple gift in the hands of a child could end up changing the world.

Kayla Cille Terry is a Digital Content intern at Luckie & Company. You can contact her by email or follow her on Twitter.

Photo credit: Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery on Flickr