10 items to include in your company’s social media policy
If your small business has been active on social media, we’ll make the assumption that you’ve seen your company grow because of it. Whether it be an increase in orders or an increase in staff to produce content, the time might be right to consider creating a social media policy.
Beyond managing the social media activity that takes place on your company’s behalf, it’s wise to have a method in place for handling employees who might abuse their access to social media sites.
“A social media policy can be a company’s first line of defense to mitigate risk for both employer and employee,” say the editors at Inc.com. “You may already have a confidentiality agreement but it might not be enough. Adding a few lines in the employee handbook to clarify that the confidentiality agreement covers employee interactions on social media sites might suffice. But it is advised to create a separate social media policy to have something specific on file and accessible to employees and that they are aware of the policies existence.”
A social media policy, however, doesn’t need to be created by the long arm of the corporate law. Inc.com says that because social media is about sharing and collaboration, the best way to create a policy is to bring in your most active social media employees to help you craft your social media guidelines. Those same editors suggest that the policy should be more about best practices as opposed to all of the things employees can’t or shouldn’t do on social media.
So once you’ve put a team in place, here are a few jumping-off points (courtesy of Inc.com) to help you create a well-rounded policy:
1. Remind employees to familiarize themselves with the employment agreement and policies included in the employee handbook.
2. State that the policy applies to multi-media, social networking websites, blogs and wikis for both professional and personal use.
3. Internet postings should not disclose any information that is confidential or proprietary to the company or to any third party that has disclosed information to the company.
4. If an employee comments on any aspect of the company’s business they must clearly identify themselves as an employee and include a disclaimer.
5. The disclaimer should be something like “the views expressed are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of (your companies name).”
6. Internet postings should not include company logos or trademarks unless permission is asked for and granted.
7. Internet postings must respect copyright, privacy, fair use, financial disclosure, and other applicable laws. 8. Employees should neither claim nor imply that they are speaking on the company’s behalf.
9. Corporate blogs, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc., could require approval when the employee is posting about the company and the industry.
10. That the company reserves the right to request the certain subjects are avoided, withdraw certain posts, and remove inappropriate comments.
And for anyone who's in the midst of getting their social media campaign off the ground, feel free to reach out to the team at NetSphere Strategies. We'd be happy to help.
Trackback URL for this blog entry.