How to create an effective social media policy for your business

Most businesses have come to recognize that social media is a powerful marketing tool and are busy creating an effective and rewarding social media policy.

In most company policies there is a set of rules as to what the employees should do in certain given situations. But social media policy has to be different and flexible – as in social media, there is no way to know exactly what situations may arise – or in many cases – how employees should best handle them.

The critical part is the nature of each social media site is unique and the social media environment keeps constantly changing. The risk factor is also greater in social media participation.

The law ministry in various countries is in the process of enacting laws with regard to social media. Until proper legislation takes shape – and this will take years – business organizations operate without any definitive guidance.

There is a plethora of issues involved – employee behavior on social media, preservation of client confidentiality, reputation issues, miscommunication, spamming, etc. The social media environment is nebulous fraught with many unclear risks.

There is a host of sample social media policies on the Internet. If you are looking for a start, you will surely find bags of ideas if you spend time on search engines. However, in order to create practical policies that really delivers – you must first do the spadework.

Please know a viable social media policy cannot be designed by any one person but you need a team. The policy must be unique to your organization and ideally include a brainstorming session with many different people with a variety of skill sets.

Besides the employees directly involved in social media, potential team members might include IT Head, HR Manager, a social media–savvy lawyer and at least one digital native. The team should have answers what to do when a crisis occurs.

As all of us are aware, social media is organic. It keeps changing continually. The team has to be innovative, capable of idea-sharing, problem-solving etc. There should be a direct link between internal organizational culture and social media policies.

In your social media policies, you must acknowledge the social media cultural values – transparency, consistency, connection, creativity and promptness. With these ideals in mind, you must construct your policy that includes training, support and evaluation.