The Ins and Outs of a Social Media Policy

Whether you like it or not, users online are talking about your brand - postively and negatively. More and more organizations are realizing that they need to be proactive with handling their brand online by establishing a social media policy. Your corporate social media policy is a set of guidelines that employees will be able to turn to when they are unsure about how to approach social media.

However, this does not mean that you should write a social media policy as a first step before venturing into social media. "It might be beneficial not to create some arbitrary rules without first seeing where the opportunities and risks really are” says Chad Houghton, the director of e-media and business development at the Society for Human Resource Management. The social media policy should be tailored to your organization's unique culture and presence on social media and address company-specific issues.

Many companies already have communications policies that provide guidelines for how employees use the phone or e-mail. A social media policy can simply be an extension of the communications policy, adapted for the online world. Scott Monty, the head of social media at Ford Motor Company, agrees that if there are existing policies in place, "amending them to include the changes to communications platforms and anticipating future changes should occur ASAP” Eric B. Meyer, an Associate in the Labor and Employment Group of Dilworth Paxson LLP, emphasizes that employees “should be made aware that company policies on anti-harassment, ethics and company loyalty extend to all forms of communication both inside and outside the workplace.”

Writing a Social Media Policy
Like most rules, an effective social media policy should focus on what employees can do as opposed to what they can not. Shannon Seery Gude, VP of Digital for Bernard HODES Group, believes that they key to a successful social media  policy is for authenticity to exist "without the need for what may be perceived as forced company morality” You want to provide a guide to best practices rather than a list of punishable offenses.

The policy should set boundaries for personal content, especially with corporate accounts. Your employees should understand that although they have the right to freedom of speech, companies have the right to monitor employee use of social media, even if it occurs outside of the office. The Internet expression "dooced" is used to describe when an employee loses his or her job because of something that was said online. One of the most recent and well-known examples of someone getting dooced is comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who was fired from his job as the Aflac spokesduck after tweeting a joke about the devastating earthquake in Japan.

Although a goal of social media is to establish transparency, Meyer states that organizations need to "make employees aware of any obligation they may have to protect confidential or proprietary information.” Although this can be accomplished with good judgment on the employees part, it is much easier to simply state what information is confidential in the social media policy.


Below is an example of a social media policy from Headset Bros. Most organizations post their social media guidelines online such as Canada Post, IBM, and Intel.
HEADSET BROS – SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY

Sources:
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