Enter http://socialmedia.policytool.net/, there couldn’t be an easier way to craft a social media policy than this tool. It’s like madlibs without the fun.
There are two main aspects to a social media policy to consider. First, employee’s representation of themselves and second, employees representation of the firm. Are your employees allowed to represent your brand on Facebook? If they do so do they need to identify themselves as an employee, do they need explicit permission to do so?
I’m a big believer that your policy should be as wide open and transparent as possible. It should roughly mirror any other media policy you might have had in the past. You can bar people from giving away trade secrets in the news paper, but you shouldn’t bar them from writing an Op-ed piece in which the identify as an employee but not representing the views of the company.
Obviously a grade school’s policy will differ from that of a machine shop, but it all comes back to representation.
Where your brand falls on the continuum of openness is ultimately up to you, but remember the above NSFW video before you write your policy. It has 13.5 million views and is hilarious.
Could this have been embraced by best buy? Perhaps. Could their social media policy prevented it? No. Was firing the creator a good idea? Your call.
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