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An effective social media policy is one of the best weapons in your company’s online reputation protection armoury. This is especially the case in the high stakes world of financial services communication, where a wrong move can spell investor indignation, regulatory retribution – or both.
A social media policy is simply a code of conduct for employees whose role within the organisation includes posting online content or commentary. The policy sets clear ‘do and don’t’ guidelines to help ensure their social media activity won’t damage your organisation’s reputation. That includes not only what can and cannot be shared online, but also what to do if things go wrong.
Here we offer some pointers on building an effective social media policy. Of course, every organisation is different, with a different approach to social media and different levels of employee involvement – from none to all-in.
But no matter what kind of financial services organisation you’re in, a good policy will have some common features.
In general, it should include:
- Clearly defined and well-considered roles and responsibilities: Map out the team responsible for maintaining the social media policy, and clearly define the role of each team member. Make sure every stage in the social media concept and posting process is covered. For instance, one might be responsible for overseeing a content calendar, another for monitoring, another for posting and another for sign off – or some of these roles may be combined. It is very important to ensure someone is responsible for monitoring and overseeing social media use to be sure the policy is followed.
- Clarity on compliance: what can and cannot be posted and who oversees it: This is the ‘meat’ of the policy, which sets out the rules / guidelines that employees should follow in their social media activity. It should explain what can (a link to, or direct commentary about, markets or other finance news; appointments; product announcements; awards and so on) and what can't (confidential information; offensive language; financial advice; inappropriate bagging of competitors; gossip; personal comments of any kind) be posted – and preferably provide examples and / or a decision flow chart to help users make the right decision about what to say, how and where to say it. It should also clearly outline the sign off process to ensure it is followed every time.
- Sign off: The sign-off process will depend on your organisation and the type of information being posted. Ideally, the policy should eliminate the need for slavish sign off and enable the real time nature of social media to work in your favour. However, certain types of information on certain topics may require legal or communications manager sign-off. A good social media policy will make it clear when this is the case.
- Crisis and issues management: Every social media policy should contain a clear crisis and issues plan to ensure that if there’s negative commentary or worse, that you all know exactly what to do, who should be dealing with it, in what timeframe and how.
- Purpose: Last but far from least, you should frame and give context to your social media policy by including a clear statement explaining what it is, why you have it, how it is to be used and by whom. You should also include a succinct outline of your organisation’s social media aims and how they align with its brand values and business and communications goals. This should be a constant ‘top of mind’ reference for social media users to help keep your social media use on brand and on track.
Your work around the social media policy doesn’t end with its creation – because it will only work if it is followed. That means you need to share it, train those who will be using it and oversee its use. Good ways to help make this happen include training sessions for all relevant employees – and asking them to sign and acknowledge that they have received and understood the policy. Social media policy training should also be included at induction. A systematic process for monitoring should also be built in to your policy.
We all know that the world of social media moves quickly – so it’s important to review the policy, say every six months or so. Anyone who uses it should be involved. The review should address questions such as: is the policy still relevant? Does it make using social media easy? Does it help further our broader communication and business goals? Where and how has it failed and how can we fix it? Where and how has it helped and how can we improve it or update it?
P.S. The social media policy we discuss in this post relates to employees using social media for their job. However, some organisations also have a social media policy for employees using social media in their personal lives. This simply gives employees information and guidance about what they can and cannot say about your company in their personal social media activity.
