When a company finds itself subject to litigation or a regulatory investigation, it will need to search the entirety of its data sources for potentially relevant documents and data, including data held in enterprise social networking sites (see box "What do companies need to know?").

In these circumstances, forward planning and process-driven e-disclosure expertise are essential in order to deliver an effective response. Partnering with an e-disclosure expert can ensure that a company's approach to information governance is proactive rather than reactive.

The broad definition of "document" in the Civil Procedure Rules continues to expand as modern means of communication evolve and new tools gain popularity. This is particularly important in relation to litigation and regulatory investigations. The Society for Computers and Law has pointed out that the courts now recognise that emails, texts and Twitter postings are often the most revealing and reliable contemporaneous evidence of what someone said or thought at a particular time and that "memories are notoriously false and self-serving for any fact-finding judge" (www.scl.org/site.aspx?i=ed23697#fb_5).

According to a 2013 survey from Avanade, 26% of IT and business decision makers said there was both a lack of general training to explain new tools, such as Yammer and Chatter, and a lack of IT support to implement them (www.avanade.com/~/media/documents/resources/social-collaboration-global-study.pdf).

This suggests that companies are yet to comprehensively understand and meet this challenge. Companies must take action to ensure that they can properly store and extract data from these evolving data sources.

There are certain things that companies should consider before investing in an enterprise social network. An understanding of these key issues will make it less complex to manage the data produced by sites like Yammer and Chatter.

Monitoring who has access to an enterprise social network, and what they have access to, is important. It is essential to ensure that companies stay in line with all the appropriate compliance requirements in relation to the protection of confidential and privileged information.

Storage is another matter that companies should consider in relation to enterprise social networks. Cloud storage is widely used by enterprise social networking providers so companies will need to feel comfortable about any associated risks. Companies operating in highly regulated environments may decide that a cloud-based solution is not suitable for them, so they will need to consider alternatives.

It is important to understand what kind of data is likely to be produced and stored by new social and mobile media. Companies should continuously investigate the extent of potential new sources of electronically stored information. This will involve the development and maintenance of a data map to record all existing data types, technical infrastructure and storage solutions.

Yammer has noted that as professional networking sites, workplace communications platforms (such as Yammer, Chatter and Twitter) and other technologies produce huge amounts of corporate information, companies will need to manage the retention times and deletion of content held on these social networks (https://about.yammer.com/terms). If a company's data map is not regularly updated, it is likely that it may not include the newer media types and so relevant information may be missed.

Planning and communication is the essence of a successful information governance strategy. Companies will need to get the key players, which will typically include IT, legal, compliance and e-discovery providers, talking to each other to create an accurate data map that can incorporate new data sources such as enterprise social media.

Companies will face serious consequences if they do not maintain an accurate data map governing all admissible data, whether these are email attachments or communication records from workplace social media.

The current attitude can be summed up by the High Court's comments in Earles v Barclays Bank Plc that a large company is expected to have an efficient and effective information management system in place so that it can provide identification, preservation, collection, processing, review analysis and production of its electronically stored information ([2009] EWHC 2500).

In Earles, a large company was penalised for failing to disclose critical information to the court.

The implications of not including new technologies in a thorough and regularly updated data map can be far-reaching. A US circuit court has ruled that a company's failure to produce emails and email attachments was negligent and contrary to its legal obligations (Coleman Holdings v Morgan Stanley and Co ). This led to a finding that the company had spoiled evidence, as a result of which the jury awarded damages of $1.5 billion, although this was later overturned on unrelated grounds.

Social media use is exploding and communication practices are changing rapidly. As the data landscape is continually shifting, mapping this landscape cannot be a one-off exercise. In particular, the growing popularity of enterprise social networks and the resulting increase in data highlights the importance of a continual data management strategy. The consequences of neglecting this monitoring process can be costly, both financially and in terms of reputation. Leading companies are now recognising the benefit of partnering with experts to adopt a proactive, continual approach to information governance.