By Matteo Tonello, Managing Director, Corporate Leadership at The Conference Board Companies have embraced social media as an external communications tool, increasing their use of visual platforms such as Instagram and engaging employees in branding and promotional activities. Every company participating in The Conference Board’s Corporate Communications Practices survey now uses social media in some way. A large majority of manufacturing (81.8 percent) and financial services (90 percent) companies indicated that the corporate communications officer is the official spokesperson on social networks. This is another front of the expansion of responsibilities of the communications department.  While the majority of organizations limit the use of the company’s social media accounts to official spokespersons, businesses seem to understand the employee engagement opportunities stemming from these technologies. The survey found that they rarely restrict employee access to their own personal social media accounts and that, in fact, they may encourage their use to support branding and promotional activities. Corporate policies regulating employees’ personal use of these platforms are quite widespread and may explicitly call for adherence to the company’s values and compliance with copyright laws. Download the report for more information about corporate use of social media. Corporate Communications Practices and the full Corporate Intelligence portfolio are complimentary to members of The Conference Board. A fee may apply for non-members. Do not hesitate to contact me for questions on our benchmarks. To learn more about our member benefits, email us at membership@conferenceboard.org. About the author: [caption id="attachment_82" align="alignleft" width="100"] Matteo Tonello
Managing Director
Corporate Leadership
The Conference Board[/caption] Matteo Tonello is managing director at The Conference Board. In his role, Tonello advises members of The Conference Board on issues of corporate governance, risk management, corporate sustainability and citizenship. He regularly participates as a speaker and moderator in educational programs on best practices and conducts analyses and research in collaboration with leading corporations, institutional investors, and professional firms. Follow Matteo on Twitter: @MatteoTonelloNY.