Keep it legal

Legal implications and best practice when using social media

Before you launch social media assets to your website, make sure you have thought about the legal aspects. While many social media tools are useful, they sometimes solicit personal details or user generated content. Managing these details can be straightforward as long as you must make clear to your users what you are and are not responsible for.

Make sure you have the following on your site:

* privacy policy - lets users know how their personal details will be used
* disclaimer - lays out the limits of your legal liability
* terms and conditions - lets users know what they can expect from the site

The Legal profession have a code of ethics and a special relationship with their clients. Several countries prohibit 'promoting' the firm, yet social media and information education would be quite legal as it is not considered in the same vein as blatant advertising. For countries where firms have entitlement to promote their services, social media is a very valuable addition to client conversion and keeping them up to date with new laws regarding their particular industry or service.

Law firms do well to consider the development of social media attributes as augmentations to their 'brochureware' sites providing a stringent and 'judicious' eye is cast on all legal risks prior to launch.