As social media marketing continues to grow, companies are leveraging the power of
social media to advance their business. Not only it helps to build relationships with
customers and connect with guests and partners; it also connects the general public,
in terms of companies’ public image and how they portray themselves online.
Meanwhile, uncertainty of contemporary regulatory guidelines and requirements
are emerging which exposes companies to even greater risk. This makes policies and
internal controls on social media use the vital parts of any company’s compliance
policy.
In August 2018, Tesla’s chairman Elon Musk tweeted out that he had secured
funding to take Tesla private at US$420 per share. This later turned out to be a
marijuana-inspired joke he had made to amuse his girlfriend. Sadly, the United
States’ Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) didn’t find this funny. It promptly
filed charges in September against Musk for securities fraud and distributing
misleading information. As we could see, the law would not tolerate any form of
false disclosure, not even a joke. If you said something that is not true about your
company or misleading, legal liabilities would come after you and that’s why we
need policies to ensure companies wouldn’t cross the line.
A social media governance policy would therefore be ideal to mitigate the risks to
use these online platforms by controlling information disclosure. By having a
complete management guidance and internal control system, one should set a well-
defined procedure with respect to who could disclose information and what
information to disclose. It is also important to educate team members not to spread
rumors about the company and update them on a regular basis about any change
in Hong Kong’s regulations.
隨著社交媒體營銷的不斷發展，公司正在逐漸使用社交媒體的力量推動業務發展。社交媒體不僅能幫助客戶和合作夥伴建立關係，還能透過與公眾聯繫以建立公司形象。此外，由於監管準則和要求的不確定性，這使公司面臨更大的風險。因此，關於社交媒體的政策和內部控制將成為任何一間公司制定合規政策的重要組成部分之一。
在二零一八年八月，特斯拉的董事長伊隆馬斯克在推特上說，他已有足夠的資金，將以每股四百二十美元的價格收購特斯拉。後來證實，這是他為了逗女友而開玩笑以大麻作為靈感的玩笑。然而，美國證券交易委員會（SEC）並不認為這是個有趣的笑話。SEC迅速地在九月份提出針對馬斯克有關證券欺詐和散佈誤導性信息的指控。由此可見，法律並不容忍任何形式的虛假披露，儘管只是一個單純的玩笑。假設你發表了關於公司的一些不正確或有誤導性的資訊，便可能構成法律責任，因此我們需要政策來確保公司不會跨越這條界線。
為了降低這些社交媒體的使用風險，最理想的方法是為公司制定一個社交媒體治理政策以控制資訊披露。透過建立完整的管理指導和內部控制系統，制定明確的程序以決定誰能夠披露資訊以及相關資訊的內容。除此以外，向團隊成員闡明散播公司謠言的嚴重性及定期更新香港法規的變化亦很重要。