Your company needs a social media policy, and it should not be as short as “use your common sense.”
A year ago, we here at 352 Media Group were guilty of that problem. We had a small, yet budding, marketing department and we never had much need for something formal.
Instead, we took the “use your head and don’t be stupid” kind of approach. With only 1-2 people posting on behalf of the company, it worked.
Now we encourage all employees — even our web developers and sales team — to participate and engage through our company social accounts and their personal accounts. With more people involved, a social media policy is becoming more of a necessity than a suggestion.
As we begin to craft our own formal policy, we looked at a range of other companies to see get some ideas. Another great starting point is a social media policy template.
Take a look at the below examples and let us know in the comments how your company directs its employees to interact with social media online.
1. Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola’s brands may be some of the most discussed on social media, so their policy is centered on how to properly engage with the people doing the talking. The highlights:
- They identify themselves as a marketing company
- Ways to ensure their 5 core values are reflected in social media
- “Have fun, but be smart”
Coca-Cola also recognizes the differences between an official spokesperson speaking on behalf of the company and of individual employees speaking about the company, something that often gets forgotten.
Full text here.
2. Razorfish
Razorfish’s Social Influence Marketing Guidelines starts straight and to the point: “If you are not using Social Influence Marketing in your job, please get started.” They put much of the responsibility on the poster; it’s a “use common sense” policy, but clearly written out with questions to ask yourself before making anything public. Some highlights for the policy include:
- Questions to ask yourself before posting
- Specific guidelines relating to Twitter and business blogging
- Examples of where their guidelines would and would not apply
They also address one of the biggest concerns with social media in the workplace — productivity — rather diplomatically: “Don’t neglect the social values, but also be practical: we have demands of our clients to meet, too.”
Full text here.
3. Washington Post
Washington Post, on the other hand, isn’t as carefree. You may remember that they, and many other news organizations, banned their journalists from participating in Stewart/Colbert Rally back in October. Their social media policy isn’t very different.
“We must remember that Washington Post journalists are always Washington Post journalists,” it reads in the first paragraph. And as such, WaPo went on to essentially ban posting anything online, even in private accounts, that “could be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility.
This is pretty standard for news organizations, to avoid the appearance of bias, and likely more strict than most businesses need to worry about.
Full text here.
4. Cisco
Cisco took the most formal approach when it comes to their Internet Postings Policy. They actually only mention “social” once throughout the document. The highlights:
- Not circulating anything that you didn’t write yourself unless permitted.
- Having authorization from your manager before speaking on the company’s behalf.
- They can update/modify the policy whenever they like (although it hasn’t been since 2008.)
Cisco also became notorious when one of their partner advocates called out the one unfortunate job applicant who tweeted her way out of job. Clearly, some of their employees know how to listen.
Full text here.
The results
Many of these listed were outdated by at least two years. Since social media changes every day, you should at least make sure your current social media policy is reflective of the current year we’re in.
Social media policies are also as diverse as the people who use social media. Like anything within your company, the social media policy should reflect your business values. Use the above examples for brainstorming and inspiration to help craft your own policy.
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Does your company have a social media policy? Is it the right policy? Let us know what you think in the comments below.