General vs specific social media policy
I was recently pointed to this social media policy from IBM and I liked what I saw overall, in terms of presenting a general guideline of expected behaviors and activities employees could engage in. I also recognize that they won’t necessarily share their strategies for using social media on particular, but I do find that while general policy is good, specific policy is even better.
What do I mean by that? General policy can tell you what the expected behaviors are and how you should behave professionally on a given site, but specific policy focuses on examining how each site should be used by the professional. Specific policy recognizes that each site has different interfaces and activities and that it’s important to create policies that explain what activities are sanctioned on a given site, as well as what are unacceptable.
With specific policies in place it becomes easier to target an employee’s usage of a social media site and determine if it’s actually useful for the company or if its just the employee goofing off. Such regulation can be important, especially when there are non-social media related activities to get done. It’s fair to say that it’s very easy to spend all day on a social media site, without actually contributing anything toward the work one has to do.
At the same time, having a social media presence is useful for a company. If the company can help an employee understand not just the general policies but also the expected specific activities an employee can engage in while on a given site, it can help the company streamline their own social media strategy, while making good use of their employees activities on social media.
And of course, what should also go into specific policies is a clear delineation of the difference between personal activities and professional activities so that employees do have an understanding of how they represent the company, and how to make it clear to their followers when they aren’t representing the company. This kind of clarity, in a policy, can make it an effective guide for employees and for the company strategy.
Categories: Social Media
Tags: social media policy, social media strategy, Taylor Ellwood
