Companies considering the implementation of a social media strategy and social media policy have lots to think about. Not only is there the consideration of who will take care of all aspects of social media but there’s also the effort of designing and implementing a formal social strategy and policy. There’s a number of resources available online, almost to the point of information overload, and there’s also some key things one might take into consideration including the following:
- Which employees will have access to social media sites during business hours, which sites will they be provided access to, during what hours, and for what purposes (business and/or non-business)
- How will you handle mis-use of social networks and what will constitute misuse?
- What kind of action would you take in the event of a problem?
- Do you have a policy in place and who does it apply to?
- IS social media employee use to be monitored?
- Will policies cover use at work and outside of work?
What potential issues could result?
- A number of potential issues have come up to date. Some of the things you should prepare yourself for include:
- threats against your company, your brand, or your workers
- Slanderous statements
- Incidents of racism
- Vulgar language
- Release of trade secrets and confidential information
- An exit strategy for employees. Who owns social media accounts and what happens when key users leave. Keep this in mind because people will leave!
Training your workers in social media use is an important consideration. Some items to consider include:
- Definition of social media as it applies to your business
- Explanation of your company’s social media philosophy
- Who will be charged with discipline, how to train people regarding it, and how it will be delivered
- Considerations of the impact on productivity
- Discussion of clients and information regarding clients
- How employees will be identified online
- Strategy for following and re-tweeting with company accounts
- Strategy for employee discussion, replies and re-tweets amongst each other
- How to integrate and mention other social accounts on twitter
- Schedules for tweeting, assignment of duties
For more on this topic I suggest you look at the following article from SocialTimes – What Are Companies Saying About Social Media In The Workplace? [Infographic] – thanks to Tina Cary @tinacary for sharing a pointer to this resource on Twitter.
[…] Comments […]