Crafting Effective Social Media Policies for Employees

What is a social media policy?

A social media policy is a document that sets guidelines regarding how your employees use social platforms. This policy can outline protocols for individuals responsible for official company social media accounts and define proper behaviours for employees’ personal accounts. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada suggests companies develop social media policies to protect their brands and reputations from public relations or legal issues.

Why are social media policies important?

Social media policies are important because they clarify how you expect your employees to represent the organization publicly on social media platforms. Ideally, you want your employees to project a positive and trustworthy image of your organization and its values. Here are several other advantages of creating a social media strategy:

Establishing and maintaining brand identity: a social media policy can provide specific guidelines on the language or style employees use when discussing your organization publicly. These specifications can help ensure that content posted on employees’ accounts aligns with official statements or content offered through the company’s official channels to strengthen your brand identity.
Preventing potential PR issues: by developing and sharing a social media policy with employees, you set expectations for appropriate behaviours, such as refraining from engaging in harassment or posting hateful comments. When employees are aware of these expectations and the potential consequences for violating them, it can help prevent them from performing activities that reflect poorly on your company.
Encouraging positive engagement: when employees understand what is and isn’t appropriate, they feel more comfortable expressing themselves and engaging with your organization on social media platforms. Amplifying your organization and its values, messages, or initiatives can promote a more positive work culture both internally and externally.

Steps for crafting effective social media policies

You can use the following steps as guidance for developing your company’s social media policies:

1. Collaborate with your colleagues

When drafting a social media policy for your organization, seek input from a variety of internal stakeholders. For example, you can consult with upper management staff members and individuals from relevant departments, such as marketing, communications, or human resources. Their professional expertise can offer insights that help you develop a more comprehensive policy that aligns with the company’s values and branding. Return to these stakeholders and allow them to review your final draft and provide feedback for improvements.

2. Assign responsibilities

When collaborating with your company’s internal stakeholders, you can also assign roles relevant to your social media policy. These roles can include individuals responsible for maintaining official company social media accounts and responding to customer comments and questions. You can also assign management responsibilities, such as IT professionals who oversee security measures and access to company accounts. Include their names and contact information in your policy to assist employees with questions or concerns.

3. Establish security measures

In addition to defining the responsibilities and expectations for individuals using professional social media accounts, you can outline relevant security procedures to follow. For example, create protocols related to password creation and management or the use of social media platforms from personal vs. company-provided devices. This section can also identify potential security risks or threats and provide instructions for managing them, including who to contact for help. When possible, ask your IT team to develop a separate policy or manual for best security practices that you can share within the social media policy.

4. Set expectations for employees’ behaviours

You can create separate expectations and guidelines for employees who post on official company social media accounts and employees who use personal accounts. For example, professional accounts often need to follow specific rules for adhering to your brand style and responding to negative comments on the platform. When posting from official or company-affiliated accounts, your users need to ensure they promote and maintain your organization’s positive reputation.

A social media policy for all employees typically highlights the importance of using common sense and behaving respectfully. Align your expectations with the company’s code of conduct. For example, you can discuss the importance of avoiding harassing other individuals online or using hate speech. Depending on your company, you might need to establish guidelines for using social media during work hours or on company-provided devices. Even if employees use personal accounts, potential clients, customers, or colleagues can still find them. Clarify that violating policy guidelines leads to consequences.

5. Promote brand engagement

When developing your social media policy, don’t forget to set standards for how you expect employees to engage with your organization publicly. Encouraging employees to share and comment on company initiatives or news can help you promote a positive work culture. When employees show their enthusiasm for the organization, it can help attract positive attention to your brand. You can also ask employees to include a disclaimer, such as “Opinions provided are mine and don’t reflect my employer.”

6. Create crisis plans

Depending on your company’s social media presence, you can develop guidelines for how employees react or respond to crises online. Plan for crises both directly related to social media and other aspects of the business. A company’s communications or PR team often handles these plans, developing and approving appropriate responses the company can share on its official channels. In your social media policy, you can discuss that the responsibility to respond belongs to specific individuals or teams and ask other employees to refrain from commenting on or posting about the situation unless they have approval.

7. Develop oversight procedures

Unlike your company’s official accounts, you often can’t monitor and enforce rules on your employees’ social media activities on personal accounts. Still, you can establish protocols with your human resources professionals and other relevant departments on how to proceed with potential policy violations. For example, you can implement a series of warnings for minor offences or set up meetings with the accused individuals to discuss the situation. As mentioned, you can also assign oversight responsibilities to a specific staff member or team.

8. Ensure compliance with relevant laws

Have discussions with your organization’s legal counsel throughout the development process of your social media policy. These professionals can offer guidance to ensure your guidelines align with privacy, confidentiality, and copyright laws. For example, copyright laws might apply when posting third-party content on your company’s official or affiliated social media profiles. The policy can also discuss confidentiality laws or agreements to ensure employees don’t share internal information or sensitive data. Your legal counsel can also help you develop and assess the consequences of violating social media policies.

9. Make the document easily accessible

Once you’ve completed your social media policy, share it with your employees to allow them to review your organization’s guidelines. You can also include this document in your employee handbook and onboarding materials to ensure new hires understand and comply with your organization’s expectations. Place a digital version of the policy in various locations to ensure it’s easily accessible to all employees. For example, you can host this document on your company’s internal websites or shared cloud storage systems, enabling you to replace it with the most up-to-date version as needed.

10. Maintain and update your policies regularly

Social media changes often, so your document needs to use the most current platforms and terminology to provide clear guidance. Assign someone the responsibility of performing regularly scheduled reviews of your social media policy to ensure its relevance. Based on your company’s needs or preferences, you can perform this review once a year, twice a year, or every two years. The reviewer can evaluate the document to ensure it covers relevant social media platforms, uses current terminology, complies with applicable laws, and provides accurate contact information for the people mentioned within it.

Social media policy template

You can use the following template to develop an effective social media policy for your employees:

Social Media Guidelines for [company name]
[Version]
[Date of latest update]

Introduction

[Describe the company’s purpose and goals for implementing a social media policy, defining the platforms that need to adhere to these guidelines as needed]

Consequences of policy violations

[Describe the disciplinary actions or processes implemented by your organization in response to potential policy violations]

Our social media policies

[Company name] expects its employees to adhere to the following guidelines when posting to social media platforms:

[Provide a bulleted list of rules the employees need to comply with, related to the usage of social media platforms, adherence to applicable laws and regulations, appropriate languages and behaviours, etc.]

Review procedures

[Describe the organization’s processes related to reviewing and updating its social media policy]

For more information: If you have additional questions or concerns about these guidelines, please contact [name], [job title], at [phone number] or [email address].

Social media policy example

This sample social media policy uses the above template. You can use this example as guidance when crafting your company’s social media policies:

Social Media Guidelines for MountView Financial
Version 1.2
Updated: May 4, 2021

Introduction

MountView Financial expects its employees to conduct themselves professionally on social media platforms. As representatives of this organization, employees are responsible for following best social media practices and etiquette to uphold our reputation and protect our clients. This policy provides specific guidelines and procedures to ensure all employees maintain appropriate behaviours on their personal and professional accounts during working and non-working hours.

Consequences of policy violations

MountView Financial doesn’t seek to interfere with employees’ rights with these guidelines. Employees are free to engage in conversations on public platforms that don’t violate company policies, including our general Code of Conduct, or interfere with their professional responsibilities. Failure to comply with company policies can result in disciplinary action up to and including termination, depending on the number of prior warnings you’ve received or the severity of your actions.

If you witness a potential violation of company policies, you can contact the Social Team at 514-555-4321 or social@mountviewfinancial.com.

Our social media policies

MountView Financial expects employees to adhere to the following guidelines when posting to social media platforms:

Follow existing conduct policies: these guidelines supplement MountView Financial’s existing Code of Conduct and Ethics. The rules defined in that document also apply to employees’ social media practices, when applicable.
Be responsible: don’t post content or comments that promote bullying, harassment, or discriminatory practices. Avoid using language that is threatening, violent, or insensitive to individuals based on their race, ethnicity, gender, abilities, religion, and other protected statuses.
Add a disclaimer: if you don’t have the authorization to post content on behalf of MountView Financial, add a disclaimer to your profile that clearly states you’re posting personal opinions that don’t reflect the views of MountView Financial.
Adhere to copyright and intellectual property laws: when posting content, respect laws that apply to the brand, trademarks and intellectual property of MountView Financial and third parties. Don’t use MountView Financial company trademarks in your profile images, account names, or content unless you receive permission to do so.
Respect confidential information and personal data: don’t post content that discloses private or internal information about MountView’s services or business practices. Similarly, maintain the confidentiality of our customers and their personal data and information.

Review procedures

Due to the changing nature of social media platforms and technologies, MountView Financial performs an annual review of these guidelines to ensure their relevance and adherence to applicable laws and regulations. The company can alter, add, or remove rules at any time, and we’ll notify employees of changes. Please consult this document regularly to ensure you maintain an up-to-date understanding of our policies.

For more information: If you have questions or concerns about these guidelines, contact Heather Mayer, head of human resources, at 123-555-8910 or hmayer@mountviewfinancial.com.