It’ s really no longer a question of IF your company should establish social media guidelines but rather WHEN will you create them. With the growing audience of social media users internally and externally, it would be to a company’s detriment to overlook community policies for their employees. If you haven’t realized the full impact of how social media can impact your company brand and marketing efforts, you should check out these 5 Social Media Disasters.
Some ideas on how to create a corporate social media policy:
- Involve Stakeholders Throughout the Enterprise – Social media isn’t just for corporate communications. There are ample benefits for HR, sales, accounting, product development, executive and operations. Involve these people early so you craft a policy that encourages innovation and reflects the strengths and limitations of those departments.
- Set Aside “You Can’t Do That” Thinking – You’ve heard the mantras about “If you always do what you’ve always done…,” right? Social media is a new-ish approach to business. It enables new forms of collaboration, new approaches to problem-solving, and new ways to increase efficiency. “You can’t do that!” is our default response, a knee-jerk posture we instinctively deploy as a defense against discomfort. Hear it, recognize it, accept it, and set it aside. Then, proceed.
- Acknowledge Today’s Paradigms, But Plan for Tomorrow’s – Don’t draft a policy that reflects how you’ve done business for the last 100 years. Instead, think about the next 100 years. Technology, cultures, and human behaviors change. Is your policy flexible enough to adapt as the world around you evolves?
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