Many businesses today are considering establishing social media policies, but is a social media policy really necessary and where should you start?

Generally, social media policies are developed in response to a problem or perceived problem. Generally it’s a goof-up in one of two categories:

1. Someone posts a potentially offensive or off-brand message by mistake.
2. Someone inside the company is offended by a public post even when the audience isn’t.

The recent press on social media goof-ups may have contributed to your considering a social media policy. But just because companies made mistakes that appeared in new articles it doesn’t mean they were as serious as they appear. So before we panic and stop all social media activity pending development of a social media policy, let’s think about this a bit more.

Take the case of the Red Cross for example. In Feb. 2011, the following tweet appeared in the Red Cross Twitter stream:

“Ryan found two more 4 bottle packs of Dogfish Head’s Midas Touch beer… When we drink we do it right #gettngslizzerd.”

When the tweet was discovered the employee publicly explained she wasn’t familiar with Hootsuite. The Red Cross responded with humor, “We’ve deleted the rogue tweet, but rest assured the Red Cross is sober and we’ve confiscated the keys.” Additionally Dogfish Head jumped in and asked their audience to use the hashtag #gettngslizzerd and donate to the Red Cross.  Later the Red Cross stated, “We are an organization that deals with life-changing disasters and this wasn’t one of them.”

So ultimately no policy could have taught the employee how to use Hootsuite properly. That’s why we believe education should come first, not policies. Policies tend to be formulated in a way that tells people what they shouldn’t do instead of giving them tools that will help them do their jobs better.

A more effective way is to write a set of clear and simple guidelines and offer social media training to your employees so that they can help you market your business better, while lowering the risk of mistakes.

There are three areas that these guidelines should cover:

1. Tips on how to be manage social networks most effectively while reducing risk of errors
2. Recommendations on how employees should conduct themselves online
3. Brand guidelines translated into social media – appropriate talk and narratives

1. Related to the first category here are the guidelines that we apply to our work:

• Use a computer not a mobile phone for social media management.  Not only is it faster but it’s much too easy to make mistakes when typing on a mobile phone.
• If you must tweet from your phone make sure to use separate applications for business and personal purposes. Most goof-ups we read about in the press resulted from tweeting to the business account instead of tweeting to the personal account while using the same application for both. So separate the two.
• Get into the habit of checking a post right after you posted it. We all make mistakes so the sooner we catch them the better.

2. Another set of rules simply have to do with understanding that it’s not a good idea to be a jackass. Ideally you didn’t hire a jackass. But regardless, it’s probably a good idea to educate employees that they should keep it clean when communicating publicly from their own accounts as well. Then they won’t have to pretend to be nice people when it comes to doing their jobs. And in the long-term it’s best for their careers.

3. The third set of rules are your brand rules – the language that defines your culture, the narratives that represent your brand. Ultimately these are not social media policies, these are brand guidelines, and you most definitely should include them with your social media guidelines.

Last but not least, it’s about education.  If we treat our employees like adults and educate them on how to do things better, and invite them to contribute with tips on how to do things better, instead of telling them what not to do, we will arm them with tools that will not just help them avoid social media errors but that will also help them be better promoters for your company.

In conclusion – guide and educate.

Best guidelines we’ve seen? Razorfish

Worst guidelines? There’s nothing to gain by looking at the worst, but believe me when I say, the 20+ pages of nonsense should not be seen by another set of eyes.  But if you insist you can find the whole range of policies on the Social Media Governance website.

Do you have any tips on how to avoid social media goof-ups? Please let us know!