A new report from the National Labor Relations Board should be a big help for companies trying to craft practical (and legal) social media policies.

The report provides more detail on why some employees’ social media communications constitute legally protected activity, while others do not. It uses real-life cases, and serves as a warning to companies to exercise caution before taking any disciplinary actions against employees for what they say on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...