Do You Need a Social Media Policy?

Inc. Magazine has put together an excellent series on social media, entitled “Social Media Toolkit.” As well as recommending Trackur, they also include my advice on whether you need a social media policy for employees.

My advice includes…

When it comes to your social media policies, every company is going to differ on what type of engagement is acceptable, says Andy Beal, CEO of Trackur.com, an online reputation monitoring site, and author of the book Radically Transparent. Beal, who advises companies of all sizes on how to effectively manage their reputation on the Internet, believes that any company that has a social media presence these days can benefit from having some type of policy in place, but he specifies that it need only include what is necessary to protect the company legally and financially.

…a social media policy does not have to be a long, weighty document, says Beal. In fact, most companies that have social media policies have “no more than 10 bullet points,” says Beal. It should be posted in a place where it is easily visible, he adds, like an internal company wiki. Ultimately, your social media policy should function as an informal guide, in which there is room for interpretation and discussion with employees. “The benefits of having your employees engaging in social media far outweigh the dangers of them saying something that they shouldn’t,” says Beal.