By Kaylee Lauriel, PR Intern
The prominence of social media and the presence of a cellphone in everyone’s pockets means many things, two of which being that nothing is private, and your company needs a strong social media policy.
There are eight components to a firm social media policy:
Purpose
Your company needs to understand why the policy is being created to govern social media, and what it will means for your company’s social media going forward.
Definition
Clearly define what your company will classify as social media, the specific platforms, and how the company will use the platforms. Your HR department will also include a clearly defined cellphone use policy, as many companies prohibit the personal use of social media during company time.
Users
Establish who in the company will be authorized to contribute, engage with and respond to social media, and who will be monitoring their activities. Appoint a company photographer to oversee taking photos to post.
Ownership
Decide who is in charge of creating and selecting content with guidelines and schedules for posting. This person, or people, will handle any photo or video release forms.
Content
Plainly define the type of information that can and cannot be shared.
Employee Conduct
Create a code of conduct for employees to adhere to in order to prevent them from accidentally commenting about the company or a situation without the company’s knowledge, control and explicit consent.
Communication Risks
Establish guidelines, both general and specific, and best practices for the use of different social media platforms. Make sure to touch on copyright material, any trademarks, imagery guidelines and a list of topics that should never be posted.
Negative Comments Protocol
Make sure there is a well-defined protocol on how to handle a customer’s negative posts or comments, such as when to acknowledge them, when to delete them and how to handle potential threatening posts or comments. Marketing and human resources both must be involved and have a plan of action to minimize the impact of negative posts and comments. The more likes, shares, tags and attention the post gets, the more the narrative spins out of control.
Strong social media policies set expectations and parameters for potential situations that could harm a company’s reputation. Company success relies on the right social media engagement, so make it easy with a good social media policy.
