Think about it for a second, isn't social media the perfect answer to an age old problem?
Mummy, how do I send my letter to Santa Claus?
Santa's Dilemma... Posting a letter to the North Pole in this day and age is a nonsense! Shouldn't Santa be using Social Media to interact with people? It's quicker, cheaper, and his target audience use it.
What's Santa's problem?
Santa's a smart guy (runs the biggest logistics business in the world -click to read about it), he understands the concepts of modern social media marketing, but doesn't quite get round to it because.....he's to busy (not because he's too old for social media).
Can Santa use his elves?
His young elves understand social media. They'd love to be involved with helping him update his client communications, if he delegated it to them.
Can you trust your team?
If Santa and his elves are involved with his brand on Social Media, there maybe problems....
- What if somebody says something out of line with Santa's values?
- how will they handle an upset child who gets the wrong present?
- what does a good client response look like?
- how will they ensure a timely response to queries?
- how will they ensure brand consistency?
- etc etc
But you allow your team to talk to clients already!
Protecting yourself against a changing future.
It seems there's always something new or changes in how to use Social Media. What do you think will come up next? Would Santa be trying to protect himself against something that's changing faster than the law can keep up with? How will he get his helpers to put that into place?
You NEED a social media policy.
Without a one you can't:
- use Social Media for yourself, let alone getting your team to help you. It gives you a framework on what to say, do, not do...etc.
- outsource ANY element of your social media, be it blogging, tweeting, responding to queries. How will you be sure they do the job right (or handle your clients data)
12 thoughts on creating a social media policy
- If you don't create a policy, the problem still exists. Even if you're not active on social media you need to protect yourself. There are hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute! A child complaining about Santa's toys would be heard by all the other children, even if Santa doesn't use Social Media. How should you listen and what will you do to respond? Is your complaints procedure fit for purpose? Click the-coke-was-flat-so-we-went-thirsty for a thought about complaints!
- What's the purpose: Be clear on why you use social media! What's the objective? This will help you with the purpose of a policy which you and your team can use.
- What protection do you need? List the risks you're already exposed on Social Media; regardless of what you do/ don't do. Poor Santa might never find out what the elves say about him when they talk privately to their Facebook friends, if they do it on their own accounts (read how-is-your-firm-going-to-implement-its-social-media-policy). Do you need to protect yourself against all the things on the list?
Read the next 9 points in Father Christmas meets modern marketing (to be published on Friday)
What's the solution? Convert to Social Media, or carry on posting to the North Pole. What do you think Santa should do?