This blog post will guide you through creating social media guidelines that protect and enhance your brand. Now, you need to set the rules and standards for using social media in a professional and respectful manner. What are the legal and ethical implications of sharing information, images, or opinions on social media? How will you comply with the relevant laws, regulations, and guidelines of your industry, sector, or country? How will you handle sensitive or controversial topics, such as politics, religion, or social issues?

These protect both the organisation and its employees by outlining appropriate online behaviour.Additionally, offering training and support for employees, especially those new to social media, is essential. Emphasising the positive impact social media can have for both employees and the organisation fosters a culture of authentic communication. This policy applies to all employees, contractors, and freelancers who use social media in any capacity that could reflect on the company. It includes professional accounts managed by employees and personal accounts when referencing the company, colleagues, clients, or work-related topics.

At this level, compliance is really about repeatability and control. [newline]And because that’s nearly impossible to do with native tools alone, many enterprise teams lean on platforms like Hootsuite to keep everything trackable. We’ll walk you through the most important compliance elements to protect your brand. This is how Xerox encourages its employees to ensure positive communication with the customers. Getting the wrong information out there will considerably damage your credibility, hence update your brand’s information regularly and ensure that you post authentic content.

How To Build A Social Media Policy [+template]

For leadership, the policy’s role is to define not only which AI tools are approved, but also how outputs are reviewed, attributed, and disclosed. In regulated industries, this can be the difference between competitive advantage and compliance violation. The National Labor Relations Board, for example, recently slammed Apple for restricting employees’ use of social media to push for better working conditions. Employees excited about their work can be some of your best advocates on social media.

Step 3: Establish Brand Voice And Tone

The Cronkite School encourages students to use social networking sites such as Instagram and X (formerly Twitter), which are valuable tools for reporting, content creation and audience engagement. The library should make its social media policy publicly available on its website and link to the policy from social media platforms whenever possible. Social media sites may have their own terms of service, privacy, acceptable behavior, and stated consequences for violating those terms of service. Users can post their own content or respond to what has already been posted. This document provides a policy and implementation framework for public and academic libraries engaging in the use of social media. The following information is provided solely as a guideline for creating a social media policy and is not intended as a comprehensive list of requirements or legal advice.

The guidelines should include a consistent brand tone that must be employed by your team members to appeal to your audience. You need to determine your brand voice and ensure that it aligns perfectly with your company’s values. Hence, you need to craft an outline for social media usage guidelines that are strictly followed by your employees.

This blog post will cover everything you need to know about creating your own social media brand guidelines. A social media policy outlines the standards for acceptable social media activity on official channels and employees’ personal accounts. Policies typically advise against using hateful language, disclosing confidential information and speaking for the company without proper authorization. Social media policies typically make it clear that the policy applies to all employees, even when they are posting on their personal social media accounts. A social media policy advises employees on what is appropriate to post on social media, both on the company’s accounts and employees’ personal accounts.

The template is quite straightforward, and you can modify it according to your needs. With security protocols in place, you minimize the risks of data breaches and other dangerous events. In this part of your policy, you can instruct employees on how to avoid hacker attacks and what to do if something like that happens. Handling negative comments with grace and professionalism not only helps de-escalate the situation but also demonstrates the company’s commitment to transparency and customer satisfaction.

Laws such as FERPA, and HIPAA must be followed along with all applicable NCAA regulations. 1.3 Students and employees are encouraged to embrace social media sites as easy-access venues for streamlining and enriching engagement and communication. L’Oréal’s advertising and marketing communications policy focuses on responsible communication to avoid misleading consumers and posting harmful or discriminatory content.

Even though social media has its dangers, it can also be beneficial. With a strong social media policy, you can ensure employees share information on social media that is positively related to the company. For example, you might want your employees to share information related to products, services, deals, and company updates across the company’s social media accounts. A social media policy allows you to control what is shared and how it is shared on the internet. A Social Media Policy is a crucial set of guidelines for companies to ensure safe and productive use of social media by employees.

To prevent these situations and help employees always feel confident on social media, provide a list of specific “dos” and “don’ts.” Planable’s collaboration-centric design is the right fit for teams that want to streamline communication and collaboration. Sign up to Planable, connect your social page, create your posts, and invite your team to leave feedback. Everybody can leave their thoughts in the comments right next to the post.

To ensure optimal productivity, [company name] allows its employees to access personal social media channels at work for at least [number of hours] per day. We do ask our employees to be responsible with their time and always ensure deadlines and job responsibilities are completed on time. Erika Heald is a content marketing expert and consultant who helps organizations and executives define and execute B2B content marketing strategies that drive business and professional growth. She frequently speaks at marketing industry events on employee brand advocacy, content strategy, customer experience, AI, and social media topics. Erika previously led and grew high-performance content marketing teams at Highwire PR, Anaplan, and Achievers. You can find her on her blogs erikaheald.com and erikasglutenfreekitchen.com or hosting the weekly #ContentChat LinkedIn livestream chat on Mondays at 12 noon Pacific.

But, we expect you to act responsibly and ensure your productivity isn’t affected. Our free social media policy template will help you collect your thoughts into a formal document that can be downloaded as a Word document, Google doc, or PDF. Let’s break down how to create a social media policy that is right for your team and look at some examples done well. Your policy should encourage employees to share on social media in a brand-safe way.

This table gives you a snapshot of the core components your social media brand guidelines must include to be truly effective. Think of it as your checklist for creating a document that leaves no room for confusion. Effective guidelines go way beyond just a logo and a few approved colors.