When Avvo Corp. hired a slew of new advertising sales people in 2009, many of the new employees were enthusiastic, young and savvy about social media. Naturally, they began blogging, tweeting and posting to Facebook about their new employer.
At first, it all seemed good. "You like to see a lot of initiative in a startup," says Josh King, vice president of business development and general counsel for the three-year-old Seattle-based online directory of lawyers and physicians. But as he was checking Twitter mentions of Avvo, using a free online tool called TweetDeck, he found a number of employees actively talking about the company had less-than-professional profile photos.
"There was one where someone had drinks in their hand, for example, and beer bottles around," King says. Since he realized it was probably neither wise nor feasible to ban employees from using social media or mentioning the company name when doing so, he began crafting a social-media policy to guide the company's 50 employees.
Offensive behavior and image issues are among the most common problems that surface when employees mix business with personal use of social-networking sites, according to Andrew Tanick, an attorney with employment law firm Ford & Harrison in Minneapolis. "People put things on their Facebook page that they wouldn't normally put in writing," he says.
To avoid such snafus in your company, consider crafting your own social media policy. Here are three ways your business can benefit from establishing even the most basic guidelines.
Reason No. 1: Protect your company’s reputation
A social media policy takes the guesswork out of what is appropriate for employees to post about your company to their social networks. As a general rule, they shouldn't write anything they wouldn’t want plastered on the front page of their local newspaper, says Chris Boudreaux, a senior vice president at New York-based social-media consulting firm Converseon.
King's approach was to craft a one-page policy that emphasizes professionalism above all else. "In many respects it's like you're at a party talking about your company," he says. "You're not going to get up on a table with a lampshade on your head."
His social-media guidelines, which were sent out by email and included in the employee handbook, remind the company's social-media enthusiasts that "context matters." It also provides specific advice on things like acceptable profile photos and how to respond if a journalist contacts his employees through their personal networks.
Reason No. 2: Minimize confusion about murky legal issues.
Social media policies can also help entrepreneurs and managers avoid errors, Boudreaux says. For instance, he cites the case of a New Jersey restaurant tripped up when a manager fired an employee after reading complaints about the company on a private social media page he had secretly gained access to. Among other allegations, the company faced charges that it violated federal wiretapping laws.
"These [incidents] can involve very serious crimes," says Boudreaux, who also established the Socialmediagovernance.com, a resource for entrepreneurs looking for social-media guidance. The site provides a free, searchable database of more than 150 social-media policies used by other businesses and organizations.
Reason No. 3: Raise awareness of your brand.
A social media policy can do more than avert problems. "Too often organizations think about social media policies as a list of restrictions," Boudreaux says. But having clear guidelines can also help employees understand ways they can use social media to help achieve business goals. For instance, policies should advise employees how they can comment on blogs or social networks to boost brand awareness and drive traffic to the company's site.
As for King, when employees mention Avvo on their social networks, it's now coordinated through the company's marketing department. While employees aren't required to clear every Twitter post in advance, for example, they are expected to speak with company executives before starting any new social-media page specifically related to Avvo.
"We had a few people change their profile photos and there hasn't been a single issue in the six to eight months we've had it in place," he adds.
Life insurance as low as $14/mo for $250,000 or $21/mo for $500,000 of coverage. Contact MetLife®
Comments:
#1 is extremely important for big brands and small companies alike. I work in social media and given the immediate nature of the communication, it's easy for a small thing to spin into a PR nightmare in a matter of hours. You want to make sure that you assign your social media updates to a reputable Internet marketing firm or a trusted employee. Not everyone should be updating on their social media accounts about your business. It only takes one disgruntled employee to trash the good foundation you've built.
I'm doing research on this topic, who can I contact for more background information as far as meatier references to cite; literature review, etc.
Ultimately it comes down to who is allowed to control the company image. Are you going to allow you employees to create their own brand and represent the company however they see fit? Or, are you going to set parameters to maintain consistent branding and consistent marketing message? I think most companies prefer the latter.
Good piece. If you'd like to see examples of social media policies from across a wide range of sectors -- corporations, news organizations, nonprofits, government agencies -- we've put together a wide-ranging roundup: http://www.socialmedia.biz/social-media-policies/
Just wrote a post a couple of months ago called "Social Media Messes: When Employees Vent Publicly" about a Connecticut ambulance company being sued by the National Labor Relations Board for firing an employee (an EMT) who was criticizing her boss and calling him names on Facebook. People who saw her comments (fellow employees?) reported her. It was the final straw in a string of offenses, and she was axed. The ambulance company DID have a social media policy in place prohibiting employees from depicting the company in any way or making disparaging comments about management, and she had signed it -- but flagrantly disobeyed it. The lawsuit alleges that her speech about her boss is federally protected, as is all speech about the workplace. It's supposed to be heard this month.
It seems obvious that any employer would make the brand, image and reputation of the company clear to all employees in orientation. The employer should make the general policies of the company clear in order to give a good idea about what they can and cannot talk about. That's what we did. We laid out the company image first and then spoke about good and bad ideas for the online reputation. We didn't have a social media manual, but the company image is what laid the ground rules for the internet image.