Creating a solid company social media policy is key to keeping your brand safe in your online community and your team empowered, all while maintaining a consistent and professional online presence. Your employees represent your brand on social media platforms, which is why they should have social media guidelines to maintain your brand’s reputation. But the incredible opportunity that social media offers is paired with significant risks, both legal and reputational. A strong company social media policy helps protect your brand, unify your voice, and streamline your social media marketing efforts. Content shared by the company page will need to align with your company’s brand identity and values.
Social Media Policy Examples To Learn From
Embedding the policy into your company culture ensures it’s seen as a daily guide—not just a forgotten document. Set a schedule to review and revise your Social Media Policy—at least annually or after major incidents. Assign responsibility to a specific team (usually HR or legal) and create a feedback loop for employees to suggest improvements. Having a clear Social Media Policy protects both the company and its people. It creates consistency, minimizes risk, and enables employees to engage confidently in today’s fast-paced digital environment. Unlike casual best practices or tone suggestions, a Social Media Policy is enforceable and often reviewed by legal and HR departments.
Social Media Policy Example
Information shared by patrons on the library’s social media should not be kept by the library or used for other purposes. Library social media policies should also refer users to the privacy policies of the host social media platform and clearly inform users when posts will be publicly available. Librarians and library staff should refer to the Committee on Professional Ethics’ “Ethics and Social Media Q&A” for additional information. A small mistake can land your brand into a massive PR crisis that can seriously damage its reputation.
Step 1: Set Up Your Social Media Channels
Critical thought about how the post could be negatively received or interpreted should be given prior to any posting. With these best practices in mind, you’re all set to make an impact on social media while maintaining the integrity of your brand’s reputation. Now, you may be asking how this applies to you and your brand — that’s precisely what we will address in this blog. No matter what industry you may be operating in and the size of your business, understanding and creating a tailored social media policy is a must.
To avoid accidentally sharing sensitive information on social media, check out our complete guide to HIPAA and social media compliance. A pre-approved content library provides your whole team with compliant social content. Employees, advisors, and contractors can share these without introducing compliance risk. The risks can be serious if you violate a platform’s content guidelines.
Even if different team members manage your profiles, responses must be consistent. Consider creating a catalog of custom, on-brand replies for accuracy and, you guessed it, consistency. [newline]Many businesses feature branded hashtags in their social bios, which is helpful if you leverage user-generated content in your social strategy. For instance, let’s say your brand doesn’t use contractions in press releases or long-form content, you might allow them in your social posts so your brand feels more human.
Non-profits often have multiple contributors managing social media, including employees and volunteers. Without standardised social media guidelines, posts may lack coherence in branding, tone, and messaging, leading to confusion among audiences. Putting a social media style guide together can be time-consuming, so how do you ensure your team uses it? You didn’t invest all that time and effort to produce your guide just for it to gather virtual dust in your company’s server. There are also some general legal considerations to remember, like copyright violations, reposting someone else’s image without permission or using AI. For example, inputting data into AI tools could endanger your company’s intellectual property rights.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that a brand like Coca-Cola has its own social networking policy. This policy aims to promote relevancy, respect, and individual rights as the primary purpose of their digital media approach. Having a purpose tells your employees the reasons behind your social networking policy. This purpose needs to be transparent, and you should explain the policy’s benefits to employees.
If you have an employee advocacy program, a social media style guide will outline the do’s and don’ts for engaging with brand content and sharing it with their network. And that’s how public your social media posts can get, whether on X, formerly Twitter or LinkedIn. Anyone with internet access can view your comments, shared posts and more. So, it’s essential to understand the distinction between public and private information, especially in this politically correct world, where everyone is waiting for an opportunity to criticize you. Clear posting guidelines empower employees to share responsibly while keeping your company’s brand on point.