What is a social media Policy?smm

A social media policy is your first line of defence to mitigate risk for both employer and employee. It is something to consider that includes guidelines you need to protect yourself as a company/organisation or as a content/social media manger.

Most companies add this in their confidentiality agreement to employees to cover their interactions on social media sites.

Jason Falls, a social media strategist at Social Media Explorer LLC in Louisville, Kentucky, thinks companies should have several social media policies.  “Part of the problem is that social media policy is a misnomer, it’s more than just telling employees what they can and cannot do on company computers.”

social media gone bad

What are those policies that a company should consider?

According to Jason Falls the following fit the category,

•    Employee Code of Conduct for Online Communications
•    Employee Code of Conduct for Company Representation in Online Communications
•    Employee Blogging Disclosure Policy
•    Employee Facebook Usage Policy
•    Employee Personal Blog Policy
•    Employee Personal Social Network Policy
•    Employee Personal Twitter Policy
•    Employee LinkedIn Policy
•    Corporate Blogging Policy
•    Corporate Blog Use Policy
•    Corporate Blog Post Approval Process
•    Corporate Blog Commenting Policy
•    Corporate Facebook Brand Page Usage Policy
•    Corporate Facebook Public Comment/Messaging Policy
•    Corporate Twitter Account Policy
•    Corporate YouTube Policy
•    Corporate YouTube Public Comment Policy
•    Company Password Policy

“While it may seem frivolous to spell out policies for every social network, that’s not quite the point,” Falls says.  “Different networks have different implications for different companies.”

social media fails

Approaches to Creating a Social Media Policy;

There are two approaches to creating a social media policy.  You can write one complete social media policy that addresses all currently available social mediums.  Or you can write polices as you need them.  For example, if your company doesn’t have a social media presence on YouTube you may not need to address YouTube and video usage.  But as your business expands you add a YouTube policy later.

When it comes to your social media policies, every company is going to differ on what type of engagement is acceptable, says Andy Beal, CEO of Trackur.com, an online reputation monitoring site, and author of the book Radically Transparent. Beal, who advises companies of all sizes on how to effectively manage their reputation on the Internet, believes that any company that has a social media presence these days can benefit from having some type of policy in place, but he specifies that it need only include what is necessary to protect the company legally and financially.

Even when a company has a clear social media policy in place that provides more specifications as to what employees aren’t allowed to post, there is no guarantee that everyone will represent the company exactly as you want. In crafting the necessary guidelines, Beal advises companies to keep in mind the ultimate function of social media as an outreach tool.

Ultimately, your social media policy should function as an informal guide, in which there is room for interpretation and discussion with employees.

Find a social media template here http://goo.gl/l1AUqo

Patricia Kahill

Patricia Kahill is a multipotentialite Christian entrepreneur, Content Marketing Coach and founder of the Content Marketing agency, Kahill Insights that helps business owners create engaging and interactive content items for digital platforms with a focus on returning a desired outcome. Patricia was the producer of SlamDunk Basketball Talk a show on House of Talent online TV, a former fellow at Harvest Institute for leadership and now an assessor there, and an alumnus of the YELP class of 2017. A member of the BNI Integrity chapter and African Women Entrepreneur Cooperative. She is driven by passion and curiosity, been taking every opportunity that has been given to her with an ambition of stamping her footprint on the world.

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