Social media content can, in fact, be a record--a fact some records managers find terrifying and perplexing when they consider the void it creates in e-Discovery and Freedom of Information Act policies.

Since October 2010 the National Archive and Records Administration has instructed federal agencies to archive social media records, including those hosted by third parties. What's more, Gartner predicts that by 2013 half of all companies will have to produce social media content as part of an e-Discovery request, says Jesse Wilkins, director of systems of engagement for AIIM International.

"Many of you share and understand the definition of what a record is...We have to set definitions. We have to have a baseline that says, this is what we mean by social media," said Wilkins during an Oct. 18 presentation at ARMA in Oxon Hill, Md.

While social media policies have to be clear, they also have to be usable. As enterprises set acceptable-use policies for social media, and select employees authorized to represent the company in an official capacity, they sometimes inadvertently lock down the technology. Archiving policies could also become antithetical to the reason for engaging through social media in the first place.

"I know a lot of organizations, especially in highly-regulated sectors that will do this. If you try to pre-publish and review tweets, it defeats the purpose of the medium," said Wilkins. Oversight is necessary, but companies that feel they must pre-publish social media information may want to rethink why they're on social networks. It's possible the risks do not outweigh the rewards, he added.

Charley Barth, director of records at the Department of the Navy, says simply taking a "snapshot" after social media content goes live won't create a sufficient archive. "There's not a lot of value there when the links don't work and you can't really drill down into the content. It's just a picture of a page," said Barth while speaking Oct. 17 at ARMA.

Barth leads the Federal Records Council's social media subgroup, which submitted a whitepaper, with recommendations for web 2.0 archiving policies and implementation aides, to the NARA in May 2011. According to Barth, the report to NARA recommended that agencies:

• Copy and paste social media record content into a Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Word document and in a .pdf format and save it to records management application;
• Copy and paste social media record content into a Microsoft Word document and in a .pdf format and save it to a share drive, hard drive or something other than the RMA;
• Use a really simple syndication (RSS) feed to collect information into an RSS aggregator, such as Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Reader;
• Use an RSS feed to pull information into an email account and save the record in an RMA; or
• Use one of several commercial, social media archiving tools embedded within the social media site or sold commercially.

A social media archiving tool may be embedded into the social media platform if its use is negotiated into the terms of service agreement entered into when starting an account. Many organizations don't realize they can ask companies such as Facebook and Twitter to accommodate their records management needs rather than just scrolling through fine print and clicking "I accept," said Barth

For more:
- see this FierceGovernmentIT article

Related Articles:
Social media content could be subject to e-Discovery requests
The comment conundrum on government Facebook pages 
Social media archiving perplexity a sign of innovation