Social media marketers are always striving to match risk with reward when it comes to getting the employee base involved with the brand on social networks. On the rewards side, you have increased brand reach, employee advocacy and a humanized face to your brand. However, the risks and numerous examples of social media disasters can put a chill down the spine of even the most policy-averse social media marketer.
Brands that have a strong employee advocacy base have proven that these risks and rewards can be balanced with a comprehensive social media governance policy. As marketers, we aren't the most policy-driven people, let alone a group that would be particularly good at writing a policy! To solve this common problem, I teamed up with Eileen Bernardo, Marketing Communications Manager at Viralheat to develop an eBook and a MS Word Template that could kickstart the development of a social media governance policy for any brand.
The eBook Building Your Social Media Governance Policy provides a process for developing a comprehensive social media governance policy, including a brand social media audit. The eBook also comes with an MS Word Social Media Governance Policy Template that is pre-filled with standard policy language that will educate your employees and protect your brand. Here's a brief summary of the eBook:
Start with a Brand Audit
A social media governance policy must inform users of best practices and also provide direction on approved branded social network profiles. Therefore, it is best to start with a social media brand audit to uncover areas of strength and mitigate areas of weakness.
The audit starts with a social profile inventory, where your team will document every social media profile that exists under your brand. It is very important to discover and prioritize the most valuable social network opportunities. At the same time, all unproductive or abandoned social network profiles need to be shut down.
Next, a brand standards & messaging audit will ensure a continuous brand experience, and develop an additive effect across social networks.
Social media KPI tracking should also be set up prior to releasing your social media governance policy. Measuring fundamental social media engagement metrics like endorsements, shares, brand mentions and comments will provide your team the necessary insight to judge the direction and effectiveness of your strategy.
Finally, blog editorial guidelines are also included from the Digital Relevance Enterprise Blog Post Optimization Guide that will simplify your blogging strategy, develop a content calendar and blog governance guidelines. Blog content can be instrumental in earning attention on social networks, especially within special interest communities.
Develop Guidelines & Best Practices
This is the main area of your social media governance policy, and might be the only section that your employees actually read. Therefore, it helps to make this section brief and user-friendly. This is why we developed the best practices section using the "Always / Sometimes / Never" format, which is very likely to be understood and remembered.
The 'Always' section contains policies such as understanding that your online content lives forever and always disclosing that your opinions are your own. The 'Sometimes' section includes guidelines for posts that should occur occasionally like advocating branded content promotions or posting non-confidential information about your job. The 'Never' section is for posts that should never occur, including disclosure of company financial or legal details.
Choose Your Proactive Policies
Proactive policies are more in-depth documents that focus on specific social media challenges such as outreach campaigns, vendor questionnaires, creative standards and more. These policies are all located in the appendix of the social media governance policy template. Your organization should feel free to use all (or none) of these proactive policies that are taken from the SocialMedia.org Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit.
However, we do suggest that all organizations include the first three basic proactive policies that cover:
- Disclosure of Identity
- Personal & Unofficial Social Media Participation
- Truthfulness in Social Media Communication
Implement Your Social Media Governance Policy
Developing a social media governance policy will help your marketing team enhance brand reach on social networks, lower the risk of a social media disaster and 'humanize' your brand by showing off your employees' brilliance. Download the eBook & Social Media Governance Policy Template to get started on your brand's unique policy.