Developing a Social Media Policy for Your Team

Social media plays a significant role within your organization. Your customers expect you to be online and available to answer questions and complaints at any time. Because your brand needs to stay connected with current and potential customers, one poorly timed or poorly worded message can have detrimental effects on your company’s reputation. This is why you need to have a social media policy in place.

Find out what a social media policy is, why it’s important, and how you can create one for your company.

What a Social Media Policy Is

Your social media policy is your company’s code of conduct. It tells employees how they’re expected to behave online. Your social media policy should include details about not sharing proprietary or confidential company information, posting defamatory or derogatory content, and posting information or photos that suggest illegal conduct.

Why a Social Media Policy Matters

Setting a strategy helps protect you from dealing with public relations disasters that can cause problems for your organization. A well-designed social media policy protects against security risks and legal issues. It empowers your staff by providing the necessary guidance to accurately represent your brand online. When someone interacts with your company online, they receive the same consistent experience. This develops a reliable, trusted identity for your organization that turns customers into loyal supporters and ambassadors.

Who May Use Company Social Media

Your social media policy should define who may speak for your company online. This might include employees with specific titles or working in certain departments. You don’t want just anyone answering customer questions or complaints. They need to be trained on how to talk about your products/services and organization and which tone of voice and attitude to take when responding to comments. You want employees who know which details not to share on social media and what will happen if they fail to correctly use social media while answering questions.

How to Deal with Conflict

Describe how employees using company social media should respond to conflict. You don’t want an issue to escalate when it could quickly be resolved. If someone leaves a negative comment about your brand online, you may want employees trained in crisis response, message approval, customer service, public relations management, and social engagement to respond. One way to handle conflicts is by setting up pre-approved responses to common issues that show concern for the problem and direct the customer to the proper person for resolution. Or, you might provide guidelines for how to respond to a negative comment about your brand.

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