Social Media Policy … Does it Assist with Reputation?

When people talk about a Social Media Policy (SMP), the thought that instantly comes to the minds of those that manage the company's brand/image are the guidelines that they should follow to maintain same. They think of how frequently posts should be made, what message should be put out, how the narrative should be controlled, etc. But that’s not what a SMP is about.

Any company policy is generally put in place to control the behaviour of staff outlining what is acceptable and what is not. With respect to a SMP, it will generally outline whether or not SM is to be used while on the job, which subsets are allowed or not, if there is a particular time that employees are allowed to use SM and/or the internet in general but most importantly, if they are allowed to post or comment on company events, pages or activities on their personal SM platforms. Typically, only persons in Public Relations (PR) or the Communications Department are tasked with posting on SM platforms and managing the company’s image.

Does a SMP assist with a company’s reputation? It absolutely does, but not in the way you are still thinking about it. It assists by controlling the content that a company’s employees post about the company or its brand. The quality, narrative and intentions of actual posts are also maintained by the persons whose job it is to do so. In so doing, they have less of a task, if any, to clean up any potential messages published by employees that damage the company’s reputation or any possible misinformation that they communicate based on their lack of knowledge or personal opinions. This also helps by not inadvertently having employees leak work in progress without thinking about it if they get the information from events or meetings which provide updates on where the company is headed or what the targets are that are being set for the upcoming period. Policies are always useful as long as they are not too overbearing or restrictive. Keep in mind too that different people play different roles in an organization and if everybody plays all the roles or did everybody else’s job, imagine all the “dirty work” that would need to be cleaned up.

Comments

Is Social Customer Service More Important than the Product or Service You Need?

Social Customer Service (SCS) is the delivery of customer service using social media (SM) or some interactive session hosted through a website, applet or some other interface. The goal of SCS is to provide additional channels or means by which a company can be reached to get information, seek assistance or have issues resolved. Is this necessary though, or does it improve standing with the customers? This may vary as it is dependent on how responsive your customer service agents or the persons monitoring the SCS platforms are when there are tickets, comments, queries or requests coming in on them. If a company has a culture of not answering the phones or responding to emails, chances are a SCS strategy is just another channel offered which the company will use to further frustrate their customers. It also depends on the type of products/services on offer as well. If a company has an e-commerce enabled site, then having a chat option available for the customer to get r...

Who Dipped Their Hand in the Cookie Jar?

Even the best-planned campaigns run by the best teams with perfect messages and delivery systems are not impervious to somebody doing something stupid. When this happens, it depends on whether it was something trivial and a mistake that anyone could make or if it was something deliberate, premeditated or simply just evil for profit. Perception is very important when handling a crisis and being sensitive to perceptions the cause of the crisis is critical. It is important to ensure that there is a crisis management plan (CMP) in place before the launch of any major campaign. A CMP goes a long way to ensure that if something does go wrong in a campaign that there is a plan to control the narrative, have a plan to engage the media on talking points, rationale and justifications for different scenarios etc. The CMP itself should comprise different scenarios that could be expected to play out should the direction of the campaign change. These scenarios should all be detailed, w...

SM Trends in the Marketplace

Social media (SM) has claimed its rightful place and has become a huge part of most marketing strategies around the world. There are many reasons why this has been happening and they all have to do with the fact that SM provides a high level of interactivity, is always changing and is the most exciting thing happening right now. I will discuss some of the influences currently being observed through the use of SM in modern-day marketing campaigns. SM has created a new niche that people are filling called influencers. There are people that have become very popular on these platforms as a result of their views, opinions or from just posting content that people like to see. Due to this, they have a large number of people that follow them or subscribe to their channel. This following is what marketers are interested in and this is why branded content is pushed on the influencer’s platforms or endorsements sought to influence their followers as they are almost guaranteed to see ...

Advertising, Marketing and Communications

Search This Blog