The Secret to Managing Employee Social Media Activity
SiteCrafting's Common Sense Approach
There's an interesting article in Business Week about how employers are scrambling to develop policies to manage employees, especially those in leadership roles, in the development of their social reputation through social media tools like Twitter and Facebook.
We're often asked by clients and partners to advise on the development of their own social media policies, and we find, more often than not, that most first runs at a social media policy are created from very paranoid perspectives. Unfortunately in this realm, micro-managing often back-fires, which is why we encourage development of policies that stay simple and respect common sense.
Long before Twitter was a mainstream social media tool, SiteCrafting developed an external communication policy to address how employees should utilize social media tools. It's a whopping two pages, and all boils down to a few key guidelines:
Overall, it's important to keep in mind that if you're not going to talk about yourself in this social media universe, it's highly likely that somebody else will. Empowering your employees to be your reputation managers allows you to stay on top of reputation management in this realm, and simultaneously toward building a loyal following of fans, that can turn into (or already be) clients, partners or future employees.
If you're looking to improve your ability to manage your social media communication, talk to us about our social media module available on all SiteCrafting content management systems.
We're often asked by clients and partners to advise on the development of their own social media policies, and we find, more often than not, that most first runs at a social media policy are created from very paranoid perspectives. Unfortunately in this realm, micro-managing often back-fires, which is why we encourage development of policies that stay simple and respect common sense.
- Be Respectful
- Be Engaged
- Be An Ambassador
- Be A Role Model
Overall, it's important to keep in mind that if you're not going to talk about yourself in this social media universe, it's highly likely that somebody else will. Empowering your employees to be your reputation managers allows you to stay on top of reputation management in this realm, and simultaneously toward building a loyal following of fans, that can turn into (or already be) clients, partners or future employees.
If you're looking to improve your ability to manage your social media communication, talk to us about our social media module available on all SiteCrafting content management systems.
This is a great post and an issue all organizations are facing. It is a question of how to engage in the conversation without threatening those you partner with, work for, and want to hire/retain. Some organizations are embracing social media wholeheartedly, while others are adopting a wait and see or even in some cases a hedgehog mentality. My best recommendation is to participate in the dialog - as it will be happening whether you are involved or not. By being proactive and engaged organizations can get ahead of issues and initiate conversations that promote strategic objectives.
Left by Brian at SC | Jun. 8, 2009 at 9:25pm
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