The Challenges of Social Media Recordkeeping

Late in 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged two robo-advisers with false disclosures. It wasn’t just the first time that the SEC went after these modern software-driven investment operations, it was yet another example of how important compliant social media use and recordkeeping is.

The public information landscape has changed incredibly over the last few years. Whether simply engaging with constituents on a day-to-day basis or planning for an emergency, social media forms an important part of just about every communication strategy.

When it comes to social media and website archiving solutions for government organizations, pricing models can be rather nebulous. This is not an accident. Many archiving vendors use a strategy of charging a low fee for a small number of records, so initial prices seem very reasonable, but as soon as social media channels gain traction and see success, the organization suddenly finds itself being charged a lot more because of all the records created.

Social media offers an unprecedented opportunity for information sharing and conversation. As an example, just consider Twitter. For many of us, Twitter has become our go-to for breaking news. And unlike television or print media, it allows us to play an active part in that news—we can share information, offer our condolences, show our frustration, and sometimes even report from the scene.

Government social media professionals will be descending on Nashville, Tennessee, from April 2-4, 2019 for the 2019 Government Social Media Conference (GSMCON). In total, close to 1,000 social media coordinators, communicators, elected officials, marketers, law enforcement officials, emergency managers, vendors, and representatives from major social media networks will be attending the event.

While there has been a lot of news centered around social media and privacy lately, there’s no denying that platforms like Facebook and Twitter continue to be incredibly useful tools for governments interested in having meaningful conversations with citizens. Used correctly, social media can increase engagement and provide a forum for dialogue that’s hard to find anywhere else.

The United States’ Open, Public, Electronic, and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act was signed into law on January 14, 2019. This landmark piece of legislation means that government departments and agencies must comply with a new set of rules that facilitate open access to information.

Ensuring that federal agencies comply with The Federal Records Act, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) acts as the nation’s record-keeper to ensure official federal records are preserved for increased public access.

Following up on the misuse of Facebook information by Cambridge Analytica , Facebook recently announced revisions to the way it handles data access, and third party apps interacting with its platform. In its newsroom release early this April, Facebook states the exact changes impacting third party access to user datasets for both Facebook and Instagram. Read more here.

Snapchat was arguably the first social media player to introduce the use of temporary/short-lived or "story" content. When others like Instagram and Facebook picked up on the tactic, it quickly became the new trend in the marketing sphere, boasting the highest engagement rates of all social content. But marketers may be missing a very important piece of the puzzle when using this tactic, that could put them in trouble with the law. Before we get to it, let’s learn a little more about what temporary online content is and some behaviours that brought it to popularity: