Social Media Policy in the Business World

Chapter 13 of Real-Time Marketing and PR focuses on the importance of having a real-time communications policy. Social media can be a scary concept for some companies. Social media has the potential to be dangerous to a company’s reputation due to the lack of control. You never know what an employee will post. Inappropriate social media use can become a crisis before you know it. If your company develops a communications policy, you can potentially prevent these problems. Developing and implementing a real-time communications policy is a necessity in today’s digital world.  

David Meerman Scott estimates that 25 percent of large organizations block employee access to online social media. In my opinion, I don’t think it’s right for an organization or company to block employee’s access to social media. Utilizing social media is an important factor in communicating in real-time. Without real-time communication, organizations limit themselves in human resources and customer satisfaction. 

To avoid company blocks in social media, a company should develop a real-time communications policy. Meerman Scott lists eight steps to keep in mind when creating a social media policy. The guidelines are as follows: get agreement from your stakeholders, select a team to draft the guidelines, study other corporate guidelines that are already in place, adapt other company’s guidelines that suit your purpose, share your draft with stakeholders and get their approval, incorporate feedback, publish guidelines- internally and externally and finally, communicate the guidelines to everyone in your organization.

 

A company that has a well-rounded, real-time communications policy is Limited Brands (LBrands). LBrands is home to many well-known brands such as Victoria’s Secret, Bath and Body Works, Pink, La Senza and Henri Bendel. LBrands encourages employees to use social media sites like Facebook, YouTube, Yammer, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

LBrands encourages employees to use common sense, keep confidential information confidential, be respectful and ethical, interact responsibly, redirect media inquiries and to be safe. Developing a communications policy protects not only the company, but the employee as well. An important point LBrands makes in their policy is sometimes employee comments can be interpreted as responding on behalf of the company. Try to avoid this at all costs by identifying yourself as an associate of the company. An easy tip is to use “I” instead of “we”.

As a future public relations professional, I would like the company I work for to have a real-time communications policy in place. I want to be able to communicate in real-time with my target audience to ensure satisfaction.