Social media is a great way to share news and information about your company, right? Of course it is. BUT do you have a plan in place for who is “allowed” to share that information? If you have staff or employees or even outside contractors, do you have a plan in place for what can be said, by whom and to whom on behalf of your company? Do you know how to create a social media policy for employees? If you don’t, or if you have not given it any thought, we urge you to take some time right now and consider it — and consider the ramifications of not having a policy in place.
How To Create A Social Media Policy For Employees
- Designate a person or two who can speak on social on behalf of your company. Having all of the inforamtion filter through a centrally designated person or persons, will help to control the messaging. If yours is a large company make certain everyone knows who is authorized to share information to social and how to get information to that person. Consider that your social media manager may not know every employee who is hired, or who was recognized or who celebrated an anniversary or completed a training (all great info to share on social, btw) so let staff know to share that information with them so it gets out on your social pages.
- Have guidelines for the information you want shared. If your company has proprietary information (think Apple or other large companies, as an example) you don’t want that information shared before its time.
- Have guidelines as to how to handle online conflicts. How far do you want a conversation to go on, online, before it’s escalated to an offline company manager to handle? Having conversations online even if there is a conflict is not a bad thing, but there may come a point when it makes sense to write, “Hey, let’s take this conversation offline so we can address your concerns. Please PM us with your contact information. We want to work with you to get this situation resolved.” This let’s your followers know you’re on top of it and that you’re concerned enough to escalate the situation to get it handled. That’s customer service, folks.
While you can’t police everything that your employees do on their personal accounts on their personal time, you do want to have guidelines that let them know that someone may be monitoring their accounts on occasion and to remind them to please act professionally online — especially if they have noted that they work for your company in their online profile.
You can’t stop all “bad” online conversations, but having guidelines in place could protect your company if a situation arises. Do you have a social media policy and have you shared it with your staff? Do you review it and update it regularly? If not, you should.