There’s been a lot of buzz of late among news media about their internal social media policies. This week, BBC sent out its updated social media guidelines for its staff. Similarily, the Associated Press sent an updated copy of social media guidelines to its global staff that include account identification, privacy, use of opinions on status updates, friending/following, sourcing, etc.
It’s clear to see that more and more industries will have to intentionally address social media usage in the months to come. For those interested in developing social media guidelines, here are some tips I regularly share with companies and organizations:
Think of guidelines as empowerment & not control.
Social media is a powerful way to increase your brand presence and loyalty online. Nevertheless, those who seek to manage it in a “Big Brother” kind of way with their employees usually end up with little participation or mutiny. General rule of thumb: Dictatorships don’t work. Remember, social media needs to be “social” (i.e., relational).
View social media as an opportunity to empower people in your company to live publicly in a way that betters their life and the life of the company. Individuals with strong personal brands usually do end up helping the company because it lends credibility to your efforts. Giving your staff freedom to engage it both personally and professionally will heighten your effectiveness. If you are worried that people will just spend time on personal presence, you probably have to revisit your hiring practices.
Identify how social media fits into your overall objectives.
A big part of developing guidelines is to figure out how social media fits into your overall objectives. To what end will you engage social media? Sales Leads? Customer Service? Research? Community Building? Understanding how social media fits will then help you determine the appropriate guidelines.
Determining objectives will help you set metrics, both qualitative and quantitative, so that you can determine how much “success” you’re having online.
Common sense wins out so plan accordingly.
Oh, the beauty of common sense… Common sense should tell you that all things online are all things public and in most cases, embedded for eternity. Hopefully, this understanding can guide team participation. Quite honestly, in my opinion, it’s faulty thinking to think that one could separate their “personal” presence with their “professional” one. It usually ends up blending anyway. In other words, we’re never off the clock in social media. Your multiple worlds are now all connected.
I’m glad to see more and more industries strategically thinking through social media guidelines. I know for many, it’s simply stating the obvious. Nonetheless, we all need reminders of the obvious, especially if the obvious could prevent unnecessary job loss or lawsuits.
