Social Media Guidelines work according to some rules, which can be related to law or legal protection. However, these rules are not a hundred percent applicable to the employees. So whenever you want to begin with the social media guidelines, make sure to empower your employees with some right information. This will help them to get more involved with the company.
What are Social Media Guidelines and why do you need it for your business?
Social Media Guidelines are just like the instructions that help the employees to use Social Media positively and healthily. Whenever you are creating the guidelines, make sure to keep the company, employees, and customers in mind. Additionally, add all the helpful tools, links to the important resources, etiquette tips, etc., within your guidelines to avoid and discrepancies.
Don’t confuse these social media usage guidelines with the social media style guide and community guidelines. It is different in every sense. Now, you must be thinking why do you need social media guidelines in your company? Well, the right guidelines will help in engaging positivity, receptiveness, and inclusivity.
Also, with the right social media guidelines, you can do the following:
- Inspire current employees to follow the office accounts.
- Sharing the Social media strategies of the company.
- Allow your employees to spread positivity.
- Educate some genuine and best social media practices.
- Inform your employees about some genuine third-party tools and resources.
- Protecting your employees from any kind of social harassment and spreading some awareness among them.
- Protect the company from Cybercrime.
- Boost your brand on Social Media platforms.
Although Social Media Guidelines are created for employees, they are shared with the creative agencies, influencers, freelancers, corporate partners, and others who are involved with the company.
What Social Media Guidelines Should Include
Whenever you are creating Social Media Guidelines for your business, you should keep a few things in mind to make sure everyone can easily understand and follow.
1.Note Company Accounts: Always mention the links of the company’s current social media accounts, so that your employees can follow them. This is a great way to involve them with your company. If your company follows some specific hashtags, do mention them. Some companies also want their employees to handle a respective social media account on behalf of the company. If that’s the case with you, do mention all the steps.
2. Maintain Transparency: You need to maintain transparency between you and your employees. If needed, discuss it with your team and make some respective changes.
3. Privacy is the key: It is very important to mention the privacy-related information in the Social media guidelines. You should mention how they can avoid sharing confidential information with others. Also mention the ways to maintain private communications, financial disclosures, and any other sensitive information.
4. Cyber Security: When someone is working with your company, it becomes very important for you to guide them about cyber hacks and threats. Some tips that you should include in your Guidelines:
- Limit personal data sharing
- Set a strong password for your accounts
- Try to use different passwords for each social media account
- Don’t have the same password for your personal and corporate accounts.
- Do not add personal credentials to your social media
- Add privacy software in your device.
- Safe browsing will help
- Use a secure internet connection.
- Don’t download any kind of suspicious content as it may contain different kinds of viruses.
5. Harassment: It is important to educate the employees on what harassment is and how they can report it to the company. Promoting positivity among the employees is important as well. Provide any kind of protocol and resources if needed.
6. Inclusivity: A company should always promote the inclusivity of their social media. It will prove that you care about your employees and want them to know about some important information. Just make sure to promote gender equality through words and emojis. Also, provide a caption for the images you are mentioning in it.
7. Legal Considerations: If required, remind your employees about any kind of copyright, trademarks, and other laws. It will help them to understand more about the company and its social media accounts.
8. Mention Dos and Don’ts: Every company has its do and don’ts, so mentioning them in the guidelines will help your employees to work accordingly. Also, mention the answer to some frequently asked questions so that anyone who reads it becomes aware of it.
9. Helpful Resources: Do include the resources that you have used to create your Social media guidelines. Also, add some other important links that are important for your company. If you are offering any kind of social media services to your employees, then do mention them in the guidelines.
10. Contact Information: A social media guide is incomplete without the right contact information like email address, postal address, names, and signature.
11. Date: At the end, mention the date of updating.
Social Media Guidelines are important for a business to encourage wise and fair use of social media. But overreaching rules can harm the speech, creativity, and morale of the employees and organization. So always craft the social media guidelines with thought and care. When an organization will make a smart choice, its employees will also feel happy and be able to give their hundred percent in maintaining the online reputation of the business or organization.
