Let’s face it, Twitter is an incredible tool. Never before have we been able to so quickly and easily keep in touch with everyone we know or want to know. Twitter’s premise is simpler than Facebook’s, because Twitter is public. You Tweet, people will find you. Twitter is quickly becoming the life stream of the US, and its application is global. We witnessed the power of Twitter most recently with the disputed Iranian elections. There is no question that Twitter’s real time search is a powerful force, and it seems clear that it is here to stay.

So more people are tweeting, and more importantly, more people are simply getting content out on the Internet. Most people use the Internet like TV: they watch it. Social media demands the user to participate. Twitter, perhaps more than any other tool, has engaged real participation from a broad group of the public. Of course, with this engagement comes a problem.

Twitter allows you to easily create content on the web and have it indexed in real time. Twitter more than any medium allows not only for the immediate publishing of information, but the amazingly effective distribution of that content. But does the public understand distribution and publication mechanisms of the Internet? More than likely, their basic conception of the Internet as TV has not changed very much. We now are faced with millions of people doing something that don’t understand.

Employers are now faced with their employees having access to an unparalleled worldwide publication and distribution medium. Twitter is almost the equivalent of everyone being a writer for the New York Times. So employers are essentially faced, every second, with the possibility that not only are employees using time to “surf the net,” but that they are splashing inappropriate headlines around the world. You had better believe that this causes problems.

Perhaps the only reason that more people have not tweeted their way to unemployment is that employers are just now developing policies for Twitter and social media. Employers were just getting their heads around Linkedin and Facebook: Twitter took them all by surprise. Very few companies understand the technology, and their desire to leverage the tool for business perhaps compounds the issue.

Smart companies will develop social media and Twitter policies and make them very clear to their employees. Smart employees should realize that social media does not change basic Internet policies and also that “Twitter is forever.”Twitter ain’t IM or chat (it never goes away.) That being said, there is no reason to lynch your resident social media expert. Twitter and social media represent incredible opportunities for smart companies. Perhaps the true moral of the story is that by developing guidelines for use, smart companies will also understand their employee’s knowledge about social media and identify key resources within the organization. If you have to fire your company’s social media expert due to your own lack of policy, you will have no one to blame but yourself.