Social Media Policy

I recently wrote about Zappos’ successful social media implementation strategy in which the company explicitly encourages employees’ use of social media even at work.  While it is important that companies exercise transparency and engagement with their customer base and yes, social media platforms permit this opportunity, it is also recognizable that not every industry is one which permits candid tweets about employee work.  Often there are concerns for privacy and intellectual property protection, or simply reputation concerns.  One of the biggest benefits of organizational encouraged use of social media is the ability to share a wealth of information with the masses within seconds.  In this regard, one of the biggest risks to organizations is that a wealth of information can be shared with the masses within seconds!  Sensitive information subject to misuse or misinterpretation, information potentially damaging to product and brands, or internal complaints posted by employees to publicly vent frustration, are all things companies must consider when putting together a social media strategy.

(Image by User:Jossifresco (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Now more than ever before, companies are implementing “social media policies” even if the organization does not have a formal social media strategy.  The challenge is that there is no way to seemingly protect your organization from all of the potential risks listed above without seeming as though you are impeding on the rights of employees.  How do you encourage “XYZ Company is great, I love my job!” tweets while prohibiting “Can’t believe my boss at XYZ took me off my current assignment!  XYZ Company sucks!” Facebook statuses?  Companies are now left to try to define boundaries in the use of the world wide web, a place once considered to have no boundaries and no filters, just freedom to do and say as one pleases.  Now companies must come up with ways to address tough questions such as, if a customer posts a complaint about your product on your Facebook page, what do you do?  Leave it for others to read, like, or repost?  Address the complaint?  (Well then you put yourself in a situation to have to address all complaints or be subject to “Why isn’t XYZ addressing that complaint posted over there?  It must be true! Let me share it…”)  Likewise companies must find ways to protect their reputation from disgruntle employees, ex-employees, etc.  How is this possible when each employee’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. accounts are individually owned and password protected?  The lines of disciplinary action get even more blurred when opinions or statements are made in the employee’s leisure time.  This opens the flood gate of concern over whether an employer has the right to then dictate employee’s behavior off the clock (and if so, does your organization then have the right to restrict other behavior that occurs off the clock, like a football game, wedding reception, and so forth?).  The truth is there really is no one size fits all approach to this matter as addressing one aspect of social media use in an organization really can be a slippery slope for other issues to arise.

However, there are still things that a company could do to ensure effectiveness to the policy being developed:

1. Use internal resources when developing the policy.  Though this policy is being implemented to protect your organization it will accomplish nothing if it is littered with corporate legalese and conditions that are out of touch with employees.  It is important to have a thorough understanding of how these social media platforms operate and soliciting feedback from employees or even consulting an employee to act as an analyst in developing the policy can prove helpful.
2. Be specific. If there are certain statements that you feel would subject an employee to disciplinary action lists those examples. Exercise due diligence in removing as much vagueness from the policy as possible.
3. Consult any employee laws about the boundaries that you may/may not be able to impose.  Though it is your best interest to protect your organization, attempting to ban all activity could actually result in more damage being done to the company’s reputation in the end.

It is important for companies to remember the goal of social media for organizational use: developing mutually beneficial engagement with your shareholders.  If in the end your organization only ends up coming across as “the big bad wolf” trying to control the nature of is “engagement” your social media policy will indeed cannibalize the very strategy and opportunities that you attempt to implement and receive. 

(All credit and accolades for this tremendous blog post are for Cierra Jones who is the author and content creator for this post.)