Social Media and Your Employees

Do you have a Social Media Policy for your employees? If you don’t, now is the time to get one. Don’t react and scramble to fix a bad situation, prepare and protect your online reputation through a simple employee Social Media Policy.

When it comes to thinking of a Social Media Policy for your company there are two types of policies that you want to consider. One for employees posting/managing as your company on your various channels and one for your employee's personal Social Media activity. Let's talk about the about the employees posting/managing your business on various channels first.

As with any contract/policy consult your legal team.

Delegate but don't abdicate

As your business grows chances are you don't have time anymore to manage your business and your social media accounts. If you have a team you need to delegate some of those social media responsibilities to trusted staff (or a trusted contractor, like Prairie Giraffe ;)).

First and foremost you should limit the number of people that have access to your business social login information to a few trusted individuals. These should be limited to people who understand your brand and your company’s social media goals. It's also wise to set up policies to make sure you and your staff are on the same page. 

A few points that could be added to your Social Media (Manager) Policy

Do-

• Proofread post to make sure there are free of errors
• Stay on brand
• Make sure you log out on any personal devices after posting (DON'T MAKE THE MISTAKE OF POSTING PERSONAL UPDATES ON BUSINESS PAGE)
• Keep logged in devices password protected
• Respond to comments in a professional and timely manner

Don't-

• Be offensive
• Share login information with others
• Go off brand voice

We will post on defining roles and responsibilities of Social Media management in your company in a future post.

Employee Personal Social Media Policy

As far as employees Personal Social Media Policy you have the opportunity to set boundaries and expectations and more importantly empower employees to be ambassadors for your business. Employees need to realize in the digital age we live in they represent themselves 24/7 online and well into the future. As an employee of your company they now also represent your brand all the time. Here are a few simple do’s and don’ts for employees on social media.

Do-

• Recommend our products/services to your Social Media audience
• Share our status updates on your personal pages
• Report any negative comments you observe online to a designated person within the company
• Consider what you post about and how it could affect our company
• Remember how you present yourself publicly on Social Media can follow you the rest of your life. Be Cautious
• Change your passwords often and report if you have been hacked if it could in some way affect the business or brand (example: Someone hacked your account and sent pornographic images to all fellow employees)
• Report to your boss if another employee sends you inappropriate content

Don’t

• Reveal any personal customer information
• Get into arguments with unhappy customers - don’t even reply, and let the person in charge of Social Media know what you say if you do find yourself defending the company, or not defending the company.
• Reveal private company information (If your company hasn't made it public knowledge on Social Media neither should you)
• Endorse illegal activity of any kind.
• Send inappropriate content to fellow employees

Social Media is an ever-changing platform and your policies should be reviewed and updated as it changes. We hope this has given you an idea of where to start.