To Tweet or Not To Tweet: Is that the question?

Many companies have wondered how much "Tweeting" to allow their employees to do, if any at all. One employee inadvertently shared a proprietary cooking process while engaged in social networking. He was fired! Other companies have had executives engage with social networkers for an hour a day, just to stay in touch with the customer base. This raises several key issues:

Should employees be allowed to engage in social networking at work?

How can the social networking tools be used to engage and listen to customers?

What are the dangers? What are the potential benefits?

I have written here in the past about the new world of customer service: a woman who had unanswered questions about a flight after her children were on board. She tweeted her network to get answers from the airline. She had a personal phone call from the airline's customer service department in less than 5 minutes! Impressive use of social networking on both ends: she had a large network; someone at the airline was listening.

Check out this article on the four dangers of social networking and let me know your thoughts below. Reading the article should take less than 5 minutes.

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/24703.asp

How much should we be monitoring, restricting or limiting employees' use of the scoial networks at work?