What is your company or business social media policy? You should think about having one. Guidelines for your employees will let them know what they can do and what they can say on behalf of your company.
But what happens when an employee posts negative comments about their place of employment? A recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board declared the firing of an employee unlawful for comments that they made on Facebook. They said that posts are legally protected speech. This ruling opens the door for some real dialog between the company and the employees. This definitely will make company policy a real consideration. I can even see employee manuals with social media policy guidelines that employees will have to sign off on. When I worked at a Chrysler dealership, there was a company policy manual that I had to read and abide by. Now I expect that they will have included a social media section by now.
Ford has been into social media form the beginning. They have developed a good policy guideline for their social media usage. It’s a one page document with some very clear guidelines. You can find their guidelines here. It is a very good read, and Ford did a good job preparing it.
It is a good idea to develop a guideline before your company gets too far along in social media. It will help employees understand what is expected of them. I might even safe you a trip before a Judge. What is your company doing with social media now? Please let me know your thoughts.
