Mediaboss Marketing

Is social media part of your job? Many employees, not just those in marketing, are being asked to use their personal social networking accounts on behalf of their companies.

Social media works best when companies target a social network -- such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Pinterest -- with their marketing message in hopes of reaching and piquing the interest of social media influencers, which, in turn, can lead to a viral buzz with massive exposure. Nearly every employee needs to participate in order to pull it off.

Echoing this sentiment, Xerox's social media policy succinctly states the following: "Individual interactions represent a new model, not mass communications, but masses of communicators."

Social Media Can Be Risky Business

For companies, there's an element of danger in asking employees to spout off on social networks. After all, the public corporate image is at risk. Employees also risk offending the company and losing their jobs. Social media in the enterprise is littered with tales of employees getting sacked.

There needs to be clear communication between employer and employee on how employees should behave on social networks, in the form of a written policy, not just for their safety but also to be more effective. We're still in the heady days of the social revolution where missteps happen all the time.

Xerox, for instance, has a social media policy for employees with social media as part of their formal job description, but it apparently didn't save a call center employee who says she was fired for an Instagram posting. DeMetra "Meech" Christopher claims she never saw the social media policy because social media wasn't officially part of her job.

Nevertheless, Xerox's social media policy, which supplements a general Code of Business Conduct policy, provides a starting point for better communication between employer and employee in the social revolution. It's also worth a closer look, because it helps employees become better social networkers.

The 10-page social media policy opens with general ethical guidelines and goes on to cover best practices in blogging, microblogging (e.g, Twitter), message boards, social networking and video-audio sharing.

Among the general guidelines, Xerox employees are urged to get training in search optimization principles from a local Web expert. When discussing Xerox-related matters that might encourage someone to buy Xerox products or services, employees are required by the Federal Trade Commission to clearly identify themselves.

Read the original here:
Social Media Policy Offers Dos and Don'ts for Employees