Diving into the world of social media as a marketing or branding tool for your company can be exciting. You're on the edge of constantly-changing technology -- technology you might help shape -- that can benefit you and your business.
However, you're entering a slippery slope. Social media is a tricky thing, with the blending of personal and professional. Everyone has photos they may not want the world to see, or has stuck their foot in their mouth while speaking, but with social media, those errors are broadcast instantly for the world to see. The potential landmines are everywhere.
So how do you protect yourself? While there's no foolproof method, the best place to start is to establish a set of social media guidelines. These guides can refer to tone and style (something that definitely should be addressed) but more importantly they should refer to content. What are you going to allow your staff to do?
When putting a policy in place, don't set down sweeping, authoritarian rules, especially if you aren't the person that will be directly working on the social media campaign.Work with your team. Ask for feedback, and together craft a policy that everyone can get behind.
What are your goals? Is it a public forum, but meant for people within the company? Is it meant for people outside the company? How much will you share? Who will have the final say on what gets posted when sensitive information is revealed? For example, you might just tell your team to run with their social media initiative, only to find out they posted on your big move that wasn't finalized, or some layoffs that you didn't want publicized.
Even worse, you might find your company has -- unbeknownst to you -- trash talked your competitors. Maybe your blog post has a valid note, argument, or complaint against a faulty program that happens to be your competitor's, but do you allow that? How will you deal with the fallout and potential ramifications?
What about people who aren't employees? How will you handle temps, contractors, and freelancers? How do you balance free speech with your policies? Or do you at all?
As you can see, there's a lot to think about. Laurel Papworth has put together a great list of social media and public guidelines from corporations around the globe if you need somewhere to get started.
Of course, if you'd rather avoid all the headaches of worrying about your internal staff, S2EO is always happy to help.
However, you're entering a slippery slope. Social media is a tricky thing, with the blending of personal and professional. Everyone has photos they may not want the world to see, or has stuck their foot in their mouth while speaking, but with social media, those errors are broadcast instantly for the world to see. The potential landmines are everywhere.
So how do you protect yourself? While there's no foolproof method, the best place to start is to establish a set of social media guidelines. These guides can refer to tone and style (something that definitely should be addressed) but more importantly they should refer to content. What are you going to allow your staff to do?
When putting a policy in place, don't set down sweeping, authoritarian rules, especially if you aren't the person that will be directly working on the social media campaign.Work with your team. Ask for feedback, and together craft a policy that everyone can get behind.
What are your goals? Is it a public forum, but meant for people within the company? Is it meant for people outside the company? How much will you share? Who will have the final say on what gets posted when sensitive information is revealed? For example, you might just tell your team to run with their social media initiative, only to find out they posted on your big move that wasn't finalized, or some layoffs that you didn't want publicized.
Even worse, you might find your company has -- unbeknownst to you -- trash talked your competitors. Maybe your blog post has a valid note, argument, or complaint against a faulty program that happens to be your competitor's, but do you allow that? How will you deal with the fallout and potential ramifications?
What about people who aren't employees? How will you handle temps, contractors, and freelancers? How do you balance free speech with your policies? Or do you at all?
As you can see, there's a lot to think about. Laurel Papworth has put together a great list of social media and public guidelines from corporations around the globe if you need somewhere to get started.
Of course, if you'd rather avoid all the headaches of worrying about your internal staff, S2EO is always happy to help.
0 comments:
Post a Comment