Do You Need a Social Media Policy?
| by Steve Flick | ||||
Last November, Lifehacker released results of a poll it conducted. They simply asked visitors, “Do you use Twitter?” The results were:
- Yes, regularly – am a big fan (26%)
- Occasionally (20%)
- Yes, but only for search (5%)
- Never – don’t care for (47%)
Another 3% said “other”. Lifehacker didn’t ask about Twitter policies, though. Seeing (anecdotally) that social media policies appear to be on the increase,* I constructed my own unscientific poll on LinkedIn. I asked my “connections” (a small sample) if their companies’ policy is to:
- Encourage its use? (50%)
- Tolerate it? (18%)
- Discourage it? (0%)
- Forbid it? (27%), or
- What’s Twitter? (4%)
What’s missing, obviously, are demographics — age, gender, respondent’s job, size of the company, whether they’re B2B or B2C, etc. — and methodology. In other words, the poll would never stand up to scrutiny. Nevertheless, there’s some value there. I know what my next step is — that’s asking you, the reader, if you think an acceptable use policy for Twitter — and other social media — is needed at your workplace.
A lot of companies jumped all at once on the “Twitter train” without stopping to consider, “Is there a point to all this? Or are we just reacting?” They jumped in without putting together a plan. They were thinking (I’m guessing) that they had to get “out there” and build Twitter following because their competitors surely were, or they must be very, very close. They didn’t want to be thought of as followers, or technological laggards.
They didn’t know what results to expect, yet they were quickly disenchanted when they didn’t achieve these unspecified results. (It’s all over the Internet what they wanted — a business model, aka, money, cash flow, ROI.)
So, what should they have done (or, what to do now that it appears they’ve overcommitted)?
First, understand Twitter. Do some research on the topic. Find out all the costs (opportunity cost, maintenance cost, etc.). Assess the risks. In fact, do a whole SWOT analysis. “Social media ROI” comes in many forms. Companies often make the mistake of thinking ROI can take one form ONLY — short-term monetary gain.
Find out which entities have been most (un)successful at Twitter, and learn from them. Your goal is to determine if there’s a way to make Twitter work for your company, or if you should avoid it.
Second, assuming you’re going ahead with Twitter, lay out your objectives. Arbitrary though they might be, set a goal. A realistic goal…a stretch goal. You need something…a baseline, a hurdle…against which to gauge your success. Eventually, you gain experience and you adjust your goals.
Third, formulate your acceptable use policy (AUP) for Twitter around those goals. Policy can help — or hurt the success of your venture. There are plenty of Twitter policies online — borrow them, if you need to. Be careful not to duplicate them — their situations are not the same as yours.
Make sure your policy is clear. Establish roles and responsibilities — who should be using Twitter, and under what circumstances. Let your users know what is and isn’t permissible. Let them know what the penalties are for one-time, multiple, minor, and major policy violations.
Fourth, revisit the policy periodically, or when special circumstances warrant. A policy written in stone isn’t a good policy.
And if you sense you jumped into the Twitter pool headfirst without checking the water’s depth? Well, you know better now, I hope. (If you decide to drop Twitter, you won’t be the first. Or the last.)
So, is it time for your organization to establish a social media policy?
* Some of the anecdotal evidence:
- ESPN Responds to Criticism, Publishes Social Media Policy (http://mashable.com/2009/08/04/espn-social-media/)
- Post Editor Ends Tweets, New Guidelines Issued (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ombudsman-blog/2009/09/post_editor_ends_tweets_as_new.html)
- NFL Issues New Twitter Policy (http://views.washingtonpost.com/theleague/nflnewsfeed/2009/08/league-issues-new-twitter-policy.html)
Categories:
Policy • Social Media
Tags:
Social Media • Twitter
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Originally published in 2010 by Bizmanualz, Inc. under the title Do You Need a Social Media Policy?. All rights reserved. Reproduction permitted with attribution only. www.bizmanualz.com
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