Thursday, February 24, 2011

The Most Important Elements For A Small Business Social Media Policy

Check out some of these great tips from Deirdre Breakenridge ......

*Find a Champion

Finding a champion (in this case the PR manager) to spearhead the effort, corral the team and manage the process from start to finish.

*Build a Team

Building a coalition or core team that developed policy objectives across the organization so it would guide employees, leaders, and volunteers. The coalition could include PR, marketing, executive leadership and the legal team.

*Evaluate

Conducting an in-depth audit to evaluate the current state of social media in your industry.

*Encouraging Participation

Encouraging participation and not stifling communication, going well beyond just the do’s and don’ts of social media. The policy also carefuly reviewed situations specific to your company, and focuses on where the organization needed to convey stronger messages, including legal concerns like privacy, intellectual property and disclaimers.

*Employee Participation

Covering employee participation on behalf of PRSA, as well as including a statement on personal use. Understanding that employees will participate during their work hours and their own free time, it’s important that employees know the type of representation, responsibility and respect they must have for the company at all times.

*Drafting the Policy

Considering several key areas in the policy, including access, account management, acceptable conduct and the rules of engagement, content, security and legal issues.

*Feedback

Introducing leaders and members to the draft policy, asking them to evaluate usefullness by participating in a survey prior to launch. Feedback from the survey can be incorporated into the social media policy to create an even stronger set of guidelines.