The key to a good social-media policy is finding the right balance for your company. That'll likely depend a lot on your specific corporate culture and your industry. It's safe to say a lot of companies won't be comfortable with Zappos' seven-word policy: Be real and use your best judgment. But many will find social-media guidelines like those issued by Dow Jones to be too restrictive.
Perhaps the most important thing to remember about a social-media policy is to communicate it clearly and ask employees to sign off on it. And of course, all social-media policies should be consistently enforced.
In this slideshow, we’ve gathered the top social media policies and templates from the IT Business Edge IT Downloads library to give you the tools to begin on your own company policy.
Click through for the top social media policies and templates from the IT Business Edge IT Downloads library.
Social media expert Daniel Hoang created a sample social networking policy to give companies unfamiliar with such a policy the framework to create their own.
This template, developed by Jaffe PR, provides reasonable guidelines for online behavior by its members when participating online on behalf of the firm. The editable template contains highlighted spaces in which to include company details.
This document from Toolkit Cafe is part of a Social Media Policies Toolkit, which provides a straightforward set of documents that you can put to use immediately at your organization. It's an ideal starting point for designing policies for social media websites and their use within your company. It includes straightforward guidelines on the procedures for maintaining company-branded social media content on the top sites today, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Plus, it helps you define the rules for employees' personal use of social media at your company.
Whether you are in charge of maintaining your company Facebook account or in charge of those in charge, this template from Toolkit Cafe sets guidelines for doing so appropriately and in keeping with good business practices, from social propriety to proprietary—and legal—concerns.
Whether you are in charge of maintaining your company Twitter account or in charge of those in charge, this template from Toolkit Café sets guidelines for doing so appropriately and in keeping with good business practices, from social propriety to proprietary—and legal—concerns.
The Greteman Group developed this document in an effort to give employees guidance on how to use and embrace online social media and, at the same time, bring value to the company. This policy addresses guidelines for blogging and using popular social networking platforms such as Facebook and MySpace. Also included are guidelines on blog reading, online shopping and e-mail forwards.
Rather than devising policy documents from scratch, IT managers can use this handy template provided by Parry Headrick at SHIFT Communications to create customized social media rules.
Like many businesses, Baker & Daniels' employees use social media both professionally and personally. Therefore, it’s important to have a solid social media policy in place to address appropriate use of social networks like Facebook and Twitter. This 14-point policy gives Baker & Daniels employees a firm guide for using social media outlets.
The Vanderbilt University’s “Social Media Strategy Worksheet" lists eight key items to consider when developing a social media presence using any platform. Among these considerations are
- Team: Identify who will be in charge of creating, maintaining and monitoring the organization’s presence on a given site.
- Primary goals: Determine the purpose and goals for establishing a social media presence.
- Measuring success: Determine how success (or lack of success) will be measured.
The Cleveland Clinic’s policy applies to any employee who refers directly or indirectly to Cleveland Clinic on any social media site on the Internet. It includes age requirements for posting, restrictions that apply to posting medical information, and rights and responsibilities.
This policy was established by RightNow Technologies to guide employees and contractors while contributing to online communities by blogging, wiki posting, participating in forums, etc.
Whether the company has an online presence or not (and chances are, it does), your employees probably do. Guidelines minimize the risk to the organization, employers and employees by making rules for use clear and readily available. Use these guidelines from Mason, Inc., to create your own social media policy to fit your business needs.
