The exception is when company leadership asks employees to share major company news and use templates provided by the marketing team. Our social media policy lays the ground rules for how to use social media without compromising sensitive company information or damaging the company’s reputation. Companies have a vested interest in keeping information confidential, even if it’s not covered by privacy laws. A social media policy should make clear to employees that this type of confidential information should not be shared on social media. As a result, many policies require employees to act professionally — even on their personal accounts. The length of your company’s social media guidelines is less important than their accessibility and quality.
Creating Effective Social Media Guidelines
The assignment of certain duties to a temporary or student employee must be approved in advance by the Department of Marketing Communications. To request access to a social media account, please fill out the “Request to add an administrator to a social media account” form on the Office of Marketing and Communications website. How restrictive your company’s social media policy should be depends on the industry in which you operate. If you think your employees have access to inside information about secret products and services your company may be developing, then the policy might need to be more restrictive. On the other hand, there are some industries where you might be able to give your employees a bit more freedom. Intel’s guidelines are designed to empower employees to engage in social media while protecting the company’s interests and to encourage the use of these platforms as a force for goodness and positivity.
Legal Compliances
In many companies, social media use is not just limited to marketing or customer interaction but extends to employee engagement and recruitment. For this reason, it is important for businesses to implement clear social media guidelines that encourage responsible use, protect their brand, and align with broader business objectives. Your social media guidelines should outline how to behave on social media in a way that’s positive and safe. The guidelines can apply to both your employees’ personal and professional social media presence. Whether replying to a customer query on Instagram or sharing a LinkedIn update, consistent communication is key to trust. A Social Media Policy helps ensure that every employee or representative uses the correct tone, messaging style, and escalation procedures.
This will provide a clear picture of the naming conventions you’ve used for your accounts. If not, now’s the time to choose a style and note it in your style guide. This will make new accounts on new channels more easily discoverable for fans. This includes everything from your brand identity (e.g. your logo and colors), to your tone of voice — and even how you use emojis and hashtags.
Companies tracking the return on investment of workforce wellness initiatives find 95% deliver positive returns, according to Wellhub’s Return on Wellbeing 2024 report. This investment enhances employee satisfaction, productivity, and overall engagement. You may want to schedule annual reviews to verify your guidelines remain up-to-date with the times.
Beyond the problem of reputational risk, your organization likely collects confidential information. If someone were to leak confidential data accidentally or intentionally, your nonprofit could be facing legal ramifications, as well. Your board members should be aware that there’s no way to prevent a bad or questionable social media post from going viral even if the content was only up for a short time. Posts can be copied, saved, or shared within seconds creating reputational risk for your nonprofit. As you create your community guidelines, remember to keep them simple yet specific, and involve your members to ensure that they are open and understanding of your rules. When creating community guidelines for your brand or business, it’s helpful to get a sense of what other companies have in place.
On the other hand, when a brand’s social presence is all over the place, it leads to confusion and looks unprofessional. As a dynamic compass for your brand, your style guide has a lot of benefits to offer. It’s where you establish a community of raving fans, a voice unique to your brand and an identity that’s unmistakably yours. Ask for input from your audienceIf you need your audience’s opinion on a particular topic, sometimes it is appropriate to simply ask.
4.8 Employees and page administrators must follow the terms of use for each social media platform. Social media, such as Facebook and Instagram, evolve constantly and it is the responsibility of every social media administrator to stay up-to-date on these terms. 1.5 These guidelines must be read and adhered to in conjunction with all other information provided by Lamar University on the use of social media. Legal Templates LLC is not a lawyer, or a law firm and does not engage in the practice of law.
It covers which platforms are included and what content is appropriate. To avoid running into such social media issues (big or small), you need a good social media policy. It is also essential for you to highlight the real do’s and don’ts of social media communication between your employees and potential customers, regardless of the size of your company. A social media policy provides the guidelines and standards for social media postings, whether someone generated them internally or externally. Just to be clear, an internal post refers to staff, volunteers, or others who publish a post on behalf of your nonprofit.
Each of these three examples has unique elements, but they boil down to address the same point — not everyone knows how to act online. In its 2024 iteration, it found people were concerned that the media (64%) and business leaders (61%) are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations. It could be easy to overlook families, but the section not only acknowledges the role an Airmen’s family plays in the success of the Air Force. Like Coca-Cola, Ford has many different stakeholders in its social media success. They really need to address the different roles and expectations more thoroughly. The much-anticipated update included the option to change the skin color of human emojis to better represent human diversity.