Every organization, regardless of the activity level in social media should establish guidelines for social media use of the employees. This is simply because an increasing amount of people – including the employees – uses social media.

The guidelines should not be a complex set of rules that hardly anyone understands but rather common sense instructions with ethical and legal considerations in order to avoid misunderstandings and critical information leaks, but also to define the type of preferred communication style.  By providing social media policy training to its employees the organization assures the tone and style of the dialogue and mitigates potential and costly risks involved to miscommunication. This means that well prepared guidelines do neither control nor disable your employees but rather empower them by maximizing the “safe areas” of conversation. It is crucial to remember that in social media the organization can never own the conversation neither can it totally control it but it can control the platform where the dialogues take place which makes it responsible.

How to create a social media policy that works?
(by University of San Francisco)

Two major approaches should be considered:

1. Standard approach where only selected employees are permitted to represent the organization, and
2. Enlightened approach where any employee can participate to public conversation.

The major differences are in control, training, content amount and style, motivation and encouragement, and protection. So which approach to select? That depends mainly on the organization size and the industry you are in. Apparently training and control are easier in SMEs than in large, global organizations, and some industries such as the financial and pharmaceutical sectors deal with more critical information that needs to comply with legal and ethical rules. For these reasons especially large corporations such as Intel, IBM and many more have adopted the enlightened approach.
Other key issues that should be taken into account are:

• Application (who does the policy apply to)
• Disclaimers (legal protection to all online presence)
• Transparency and Identification (use real names and mention the company that you work for)
• Perception (how to communicate personal and professional opinions)
• Negative Content (the tone and of voice of criticism)
• Confidentiality Policies (the confidentiality policies are also confidential)
• Disclosure of Financial Information
• Customer or supplier references (do not mention names or disclose any information of new products that
  are not yet launched)
• Use of company logos
• Posing in company uniform
• Copyright laws
• Conversations should add value (e.g. Interesting content, areas of expertise)
• Regulated industries
• Professional advice (act professionally, understand potential risks, protect yourself)
• Consequences (think twice, get informed about possible consequences)

What does a Social Media Policy look like?

The Best Buy CEO Brian J. Dunn tells in Harvard Business Review about their company approach. The company implemented a social media policy in 2009 after some undesired experiences in employee social media practices. Their policy applies to all some 180000 Best Buy employees and it is built on the following cornerstones:
- always disclose that you are a Best Buy employee when you talk about the company (protect the brand, protect yourself)
- keep nonpublic financial or operational data private
- in generally, “if you find yourself wondering if you can talk about something you learned at work – do not.”

Mr. Dunn also brings up some other key points such as the values, ethics, and confidentiality that the employees are expected to obey every day. Perhaps the major takeaway is that employee responsibility does not end when the day is over; it applies to all social communication, even when you are off duty talking with your family, friends or neighbors – both online and offline.   Please read more about Best Buy Social Media in Harvard Business Review December 2010.

Post writing / 12.14.2010

Read also on mashable about Social Media Policies of Best Buy, Adobe, IBM, and Weber Shandwick.