3 Crucial Elements For Your Social Media Policy

Published August 12, 2019

Can I talk about this billing issue with this customer over social media? If a crisis were to happen right now on your company’s social media account would you know who to contact? Can I reply to this individual in a humorous tone? Having a social media policy helps social media management teams have answers and resources to common questions that come up during the year. Social media policies are very important to establish social media guidelines and rules that promote consistency, privacy, and knowledge on social media. Social media policies come in all shapes and sizes depending on the company and their services/products, but here are a few essentials every social media policy should cover.

Privacy

Your policy should give clear guidelines on when you can engage with customers in the public environment, in direct messages, and things that are not allowed to be handled over social media. For example, many companies respond to complaints by reaching out to the individual and requesting them to take it to a more private platform of direct messages to gather more details. This would be from the directive of a social media policy to attempt to take all complaints off the public feed and to be handled in messages. Keep in mind all messages can be screen captured and shared publicly by that individual so there is truly no confidential information on the internet.

Brand Voice

Your brand’s voice is important to be a consistent voice and direction. Are you wanting your voice to be strictly informational and very corporate, or is there room for more casual interactions with followers? Deciding this direction makes it easier for a consistent voice to be broadcasted when that voice is often coming from multiple employees. Some companies even use one final individual as the final proofreader to ensure consistency.

Crisis Management

Something went wrong with a post or a real-world event that is bringing unwanted engagements with your accounts. Your crisis management section should define what your company considers a crisis and a chain of communication that follows. It often helps to label and define different levels of crises. You could use a yellow level for a serious complaint that is handled by the marketing team and manager of the service area of issue needed to approve the action. While a red threat could be a more serious issue needing communication with the top leadership and sign off by the CEO before acting.

These essential elements will provide your social media with a consistent voice, increased privacy protection measures, and a plan to act quickly when a crisis happens. If you need help creating or improving a social media policy send us an email!