The IT industry has had a busy couple of years when it comes to mergers and acquisitions, and the action doesn't show much sign of stopping, or slowing. But there's one aspect of M&A deals that seems to get overlooked by acquirers: social media.

According to a recent blog by Aaron Rubin, a San Francisco attorney with the firm Morrison Foerster, buyers don't make rigorous demands of sellers when looking into their social media practices and policies. Really, social media assets should get the same hard look as a target company's other assets, Rubin argues.

"A typical purchase agreement may give social media assets only cursory treatment, or in some cases, not explicitly cover social media assets at all," Rubin writes.

Rubin says buyers should make a complete list of a target's social media assets, accounts and account names, and that doesn't stop at social networking sites. He says it should include any blogs or microblogs; mobile apps; photo, video and content sharing sites; virtual games; rating and review sites; wikis and other collaborative content sites and message boards.

With that information in hand, a buyer's legal team is equipped to ask the important questions, including: do any of the social media account names violate trademark or other intellectual property law? Does all use of social media comply with the terms and conditions of those sites? Does the company enforce an employee social media policy? Have all the target company's employees agreed to obey the social media policy? Will the transaction result in the loss of the target company's social media accounts?