Friday 29th January 2010 by Elena Goodrum

A few weeks ago we asked if you have a social media policy, and gave you some ideas for how to create a simple plan which will enable your internal team to help support the audience-facing representatives of your company or organisation.

But a social media policy is more than just knowing how to respond to online enquiries in a timely manner. It’s also about how your organisation presents its brand online, and how individuals within your organisation speak about your brand in their own personal social media outlets such as blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.

And taking the time to outline the basics of participating in social media spaces will give your employees the confidence they need to begin engaging with your audience which, after all, is the whole reason you’re engaging in social media to start with.

I discuss all of this and much more in the Community Training course that I run; a virtual learning environment designed to bring team members out of their ‘silos’ and into a conversation with each other. One of the outcomes of this training course is a carefully thought-out and detailed social media policy that employees actually ‘get’ because they experience the relevance and help define it firsthand. (A shameless plug, I know – but I’m very excited about the course so if you’re interested in attending please contact me – egoodrum@sift.com).

For now, consider adding a section to your social media policy to cover these guidelines, including information such as:

• Names and contact email addresses for each of your audience-facing members of the organisation, with an open invitation to contact them for advice, suggestions or ideas.
• A list of all the social media spaces where your organisation is engaging. These are links to your Facebook fan page, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile, and so on.  A brief synopsis of the style and tone of voice your audience-facing team members have already crafted.
• Some guidelines for interaction such as being polite and respectful of others, getting your facts straight before answering, providing context to arguments, welcoming private conversations.
• Some guidelines for employees to follow when they are participating an any personal online spaces such as their own blog, Facebook page, Twitter, LinkedIn or even just commentary on news articles. These guidelines could ask that employees use their real name and remain transparent (identify themselves as employees of your company), avoid misrepresentation of the company, posting only information which can be substantiated, use common sense and courtesy to post meaningful and respectful commentary – particularly in disagreements.
• One very important guideline is to ask that your employees refrain from commenting anything related to legal matters or litigation which the company may be involved in.
• And very importantly – encourage your employees to be smart about protecting their privacy and any confidential information pertaining to your company or clients. Google has a long memory, and any comments that you post can be accessible for a very long time.

I recently reviewed the Government’s policy for civil servants engaging in social media, and really liked that they gave specific guidelines to individual roles such as press officers, policy officials and marketers. You can download the PDF and have a look by visiting this page: COI - Engaging through social media

You might also want to have a look at this very useful blog, Participating in the social media ecosystem.