Paper Example: Social Media Guidelines in Business

Introduction

Social media are platforms initially created to allow people to interact, socialize, and keep in touch with a small group of friends and relatives has changed due to internet access across the globe. The conversations are no longer limited to the same community or friends, nor are they limited to the same country. The rapid growth of social media made businesses realize social media reach and its significance in content marketing and branding. Due to the increased use of social media, comes the question of how employees and business people can use their social media platforms for both professional and personal profiles while achieving a larger market reach and promoting their businesses. Business management felt the need to create general guidelines that would help them and their employees utilize social media for both profiles. Social media guidelines are instructions or manual for best practices for social media ("Social media guidelines for employees and your brand," 2020). Social media guidelines outline how people should behave on social media in a positive and healthy way for business and personal life. Since every employee in a business is a potential brand ambassador, medial social guidelines are important in helping them with the necessary tools to engage inclusively, respectively, and positively while establishing a positive business image. This paper will focus on the contents of social media guidelines, the importance of guidelines in the business, and the limitations of creating the guidelines.

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Contents of a Social Media Guideline for Businesses

The contents of social media guidelines vary in every company, but there are common staples that are common in every firm. Prior to creating the social media guidelines, it is advisable for the company’s management to reach out to its employees to determine the presence of misconceptions or questions to be addressed prior to the final decision on what to include ("How to create effective social media guidelines for your business," 2020). Some of the key sections that should be included in a social media guideline for business are;

Official accounts. The link to the social media guidelines should be shared on the businesses’ social media channels and encourage the company’s employees to follow. This is always a great opportunity for the company to show its employees how the business presents itself in social media platforms. If there are specific hashtags that are key to the businesses’ social strategy, they should also be shared ("How to create effective social media guidelines for your business," 2020). In the case where the business might decide to allow some representatives to run personal accounts on behalf of the business, the management should make it [possible for someone or not to obtain authorization to do the same.

Disclosure and transparency. It is a requirement by the law that someone identify themselves as employees when discussing business-related issues on a social media platform. For instance, in the United States of America, the Federal Trade Commission directs that the identification should take place in the applicable post. The fact that you have the social media guidelines in your bio is not enough.

Privacy. The guideline should remind the company's employees to avoid sharing the company's confidential information, for instance, private communications, confidential information about coworkers, financial disclosures, upcoming products, and research and development news.

Cybersafety. The guideline should provide an insight into safety basics and more so the cyber threats and hacks, which are common ("Creating social media guidelines," 2012). It is the duty of both the company and the employees to protect information collected pertaining to the businesses' customers.

Harassments. The guidelines should remind the employees to be kind on social media as it is important to promote positivity. Businesses should clearly stipulate that they have no tolerance for any kind of social media harassment. The guideline should provide resources or protocols to the employees who experience harassment. The guideline should well stipulate how the company will deal with bullies and trolls i.e., either to report or ignore them.

Inclusivity. The guideline should stipulate how employees should promote inclusivity off and on media. Some inclusivity guidelines include; the use of inclusive pronouns (they, theirs, folks, or them), shunning away from race or gender, and provision of descriptive captions for images.

Contact information and Date. The guideline should contain information regarding who or where the questions should be sent. This may be a specific person, email addresses, or slack channel. The company should indicate the dates when the guideline was last updated.

The Importance of Social Media Guidelines in Business

The first importance is that social media platforms provide ways for businesses and companies to implement their social media strategies and improve social media performance ("How to create social media business guidelines," 2019). By creating guidelines on how to actively and positively use social media, businesses can easily implement their strategy on enlarging the market reach using social media and its employees. It also helps in building a stronger social community.

Another importance is that the business will be protected from cyber-security risks. This is because the guidelines protect the sharing of business confidential information hence reducing the risks of letting that information fall in the hands of hackers.

Also, there is an improved brand reputation. This is because the information being shared by the employees about the company's products is the information shared through links by the marketing team ("How to create social media business guidelines," 2019). This reduces the cases of sharing unconvincing information by employees who are not marketing specialists.

Additionally, it helps in reducing social harassment of employees ("Creating social media guidelines," 2012). The guidelines provide employees with education on best practices on social media, and also it constitutes clear protocols that harassed workers should follow to report.

Although Social media guidelines are important to business, creating suitable guidelines for employees may be challenging because employee advocacy has made it hard for employees to balance between professional and personal opinions ("5 must-have social media guidelines for employees," 2018). This is because as the companies want their staff to share the only recommended posts, the employees regard the social media accounts as their personal items but not as the purview of their bosses.

Conclusion

In conclusion, social media guidelines should be developed to help businesses and their workers to positively use social media platforms for both professional and personal profiles while maintaining a reputable image of the business. Although social media guidelines are mainly developed for employees, they can also be shared with creative agencies, influencers, and corporate partners who have a direct impact on the businesses' image or product.

References

Five must-have social media guidelines for employees. (2018, April 17). Outplacement Services & Career Transition Management | Randstad Risesmart. https://www.randstadrisesmart.com/blog/5-must-have-social-media-guidelines-employees

Creating social media guidelines. (2012). The Executive's Guide to Enterprise Social Media Strategy, 75-82. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119200796.ch5

How to create effective social media guidelines for your business. (2020, February 4). Hootsuite Social Media Management. https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-guidelines/

How to create social media business guidelines. (2019, January 20). Social Media Examiner | Social Media Marketing. https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-create-social-media-business-guidelines/

Social media guidelines for employees and your brand. (2020, March 19). Content Marketing Institute. https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2020/01/write-social-media-guidelines/