How to implement your policy.
Once your social media policy has been vetted by legal counsel and signed off by your organisation’s leaders, it’s time to plan how you will educate your workforce. This goes for all sized businesses and could be as simple as a workshop with your team, or if you are a much larger organisation with multiple sites or locations, an internal campaign to drive awareness.
Warning: set your staff up for success (not failure)… you’ve gone to the trouble of developing a social media policy to protect your organisation’s reputation, make sure your people get the message.
Through educating your workforce about the policy and expected behaviours, you are providing them with the tools for a lifetime of success with social media.
Effectively communicating social media policy to staff fulfils an organisational requirement, but it also gives its staff the opportunity to make the necessary paradigm shift to understanding misuse and the blurred line between work and personal use of social media.
As digital tongues wag, organisations are beginning to adapt and build up the infrastructure for managing social media use of its staff. To do so, human resources and marketing departments are forced to collaborate more deeply than what has traditionally been required. When done well, staff social media use can be leveraged for online peer referral and other marketing or PR initiatives. And with online word of mouth being the most influential form of marketing, this has the potential to be a very positive and worthwhile endeavour.
So how do you deliver the message?
Rather than have the usual death by powerpoint scenario, try using more fun, engaging tactics for communicating the key policy messages. Like this snappy, to the point video from Sutter Health, or this fun internal poster campaign from rail company First TransPennine Express (UK).
It doesn’t just stop there. Consider what other internal channels are available. Often there are assets such as a company Intranet, staff newsletter, eLearning system or even Yammer. Consider including it within staff inductions. And nothing beats a staff briefing where a leader may run a 20-30 minute training workshop face to face with their teams.
Has your organisation prepared you for using social media?
Like this? Read more in our Social Media Policy series:
Your guide to social media policy – Part I (Why have one)
Your guide to social media policy – Part II (How to write one)
