Are you tasked with creating a social media policy for your organization? Or, are you wondering whether it’s worth it? Well I’m here to tell you, it is.
Having a social media policy can:
- Shed light on the importance of your marketing and communications team, its use of social media, and how this benefits the whole organization.
- Help maintain your brand standards.
- Increase your company’s social media reach (I explain this one below in point #1!).
- Help you in the event you have to take action with a stray employee. (This is the non-fun but necessary part of a policy).
Similar to other policies in your organization, a great social media policy will encourage buy-in from everyone. So, how do you achieve that and what should you include?
I encourage you to consider these seven things when creating a social media policy:
1. Ensure you maintain a positive tone throughout the policy. SO many social media policies I come across are simply a list of what everyone shouldn’t or can’t do. This is enough to make anyone run for the hills and delete their social media accounts altogether before running the risk of getting fired for accidentally posting the wrong thing. Instead, a great social media policy uses positive language for what staff members can do. Remember, you want buy-in as the more staff members who share your organization’s message, the better the chance you have at capturing a wider audience and increasing those impressions.
2. Start by outlining, in simple terms, what the organization’s social media accounts are and who is in charge of maintaining them. It’s important to clarify right off the bat who can and cannot post on behalf of the organization. This is also a good place to encourage staff to follow the accounts if they aren’t doing so already.
3. Outline steps for password and account protection.
- Who has access to the company’s social media accounts?
- Do you have at least two administrators on each account in case one suddenly leaves the organization or leaves for an extended period of time?
- How often are the passwords changed and are they changed as certain staff members leave the company?
- Where are the passwords kept?
Establishing the above parameters will help you with everything from preventing account loss to preventing a disgruntled employee from making a public rant on the company’s accounts after being fired. (This happens, believe it or not).
4. Give examples of ways to share content. For staff members who feel encouraged to share content on their own social channels, what are some of the ways they can? Sharing some examples of ways everyone can share company content will increase the chances of it happening. It’s okay to give examples of what not to do as it can help bring clarity, but remember to largely focus on what everyone can do.
5. Schedule a meeting to go through the policy with the whole organization. Set aside time for when someone from your marketing team can present the new policy to the whole organization and help answer any questions as they come up.
6. Outline consequences of breaching the policy. This is the non-fun, but necessary, section of the policy. I recommend outlining, in simple and clear terms, what will happen if someone is in breach of the policy. I also recommend including a reference date of when the policy is made effective. Depending on your organization, you may benefit from getting a lawyer to review your policy once it’s in its final draft, and before it’s made public.
7. KISS: Keep It Short, Silly (I changed this acronym for the sake of this post). Finally, if you can (and this really depends on the organization), try to keep your policy to no more than two pages. Cut it down, simplify it, and keep it as short as possible. You want buy-in, remember? The easier you make the policy for your team to understand, the more likely everyone is to adopt it (and even help promote it if you’re lucky!).
Have you implemented a social media policy for your organization? What’s worked for you? Or, do you have questions for me based on the above information? Share your thoughts with me on social media at @coralie_stern or @livelyco_inc on Instagram or Twitter, or LivelyCo’s Facebook page.