Articles - Training, Development and Retention

If you have no idea what Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn is, how can you expect to write a social media policy that will properly embrace... or limit its use?  Before you can write a social media policy, stop, look, and listen - take a tour around the social "mediasphere." What you don't know about social media can hurt you.

To write a good policy that protects the company but doesn't suffocate, stakeholders need to spend time exploring each site. Management, IT, and Human Resources (HR) must invest time to understand that social media is much more than just Facebook. 

Social media is not just a bunch of  idle chatter and noise.  Social media is a new mode of communication, just as the telephone was just 100 years ago. The technology includes applications and software such as blogging, video, podcasts, wikis, and even review sites such as Amazon and Yelp. If a site allows a visitor to share their experience and leave comments, it falls under the sweeping umbrella called social media... and customers and job candidates are spending a lot of time using social media to make buying and career decisions. 

Writing a policy that can be enforced without stifling productivity and morale requires that you understand it, as well as the type of culture that embraces it. For example, to the non-user, Facebook and LinkedIn appear quite similar.  Aside from getting invitations to friend and connect from people you don't know, both sites allow you to post status updates, develop a network, and interact in groups.  But once you begin to engage with your connections and peruse the site, you get a very different feel for its capabilities and possibilities.

Facebook to date is a great place for socializing.  However when planned and executed correctly, it's an even better place to build a community of raving fans.  LinkedIn, on the other hand, is a professional networking site which allows business people to expand their networks, to generate leads, to recruit candidates, and to engage in professional development. Strategically both sites offer significant possibilities but the choice isn't as simple as either-or.  For some companies, one site or the other might be the right choice. For others, the right decision will be embracing both.

Once you have toured each site, it is important to sit down with decision makers and stakeholders to define what it is that you want the policy to accomplish. Management, IT, and HR must put aside their personal biases and agendas.  The question on the table should be "how can we make social media work for us?," not "what can we do to crush it?"  Stakeholders at the table might also include customers, vendors, and suppliers.  Explore how you might be able to utilize employees and other partners' personal accounts in order to gain a larger following... and set up the policy accordingly.  If you decide to separate what happens at work from what happens on personal accounts, your policy needs to express that too. But be careful - you might be able to control what happens at work; but what happens off-the-click is a different story.

You also want to find how many and what kind of policies you want to put into place. Internal employee policies only cover one aspect of good social media guidelines that will protect an organization. To complete the puzzle, there are 3 more pieces: (1) internal organization, (2) external audience, and (3) safety, security, and regulations.  Ignoring one piece without addressing the others will only lead to breaches in your efforts to minimize the risks. Though it would be easier to have one all-encompassing policy, it is much more helpful to isolate what is acceptable for each network. 

Each of these social media aspects has its own set of pros and cons. Ultimately what you decide to do - embrace it or limit it - must consider the impact it might have on your business strategy and how it might represent your organizational culture.

Disclosure: The information provided in these guidelines is not legal advice. I am NOT an attorney (although my wife says I argue like one!) An employer should seek legal advice from an experienced employment law attorney before finalizing its guidelines to make sure the guidelines express the employer's intent and don't run afoul of any employment laws. 

BIOGRAPHY

Ira S Wolfe is president of Success Performance Solutions (SPS), a pre-employment and leadership testing firm he founded in 1996. His clients, primarily based in the United States and Canada, include small and mid-sized businesses in over a dozen industries. He is widely recognized as an expert in pre-employment personality tests, workforce trends, and social media.

A prolific author, columnist, business blogger and sought-after-expect on hiring and workplace trends, Ira S. Wolfe has been aptly described as both a  “Gen Y masquerading in a Baby Boomer body” and “renaissance man.”

Ira is the author of the new book Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization: How to Manage the Unprecedented Convergence of the Wired, the Tired, and Technology in the Workplace.  His other books include The Perfect Labor Storm 2.0, The Perfect Labor Storm Fact Book, Understanding Business Values and Motivators, and Coming Job Boom.  He is a columnist for Business2Business Magazine and blogger for Bizmore.com, Vistage Buzz, and Toolbox for HR.

While speaking at conferences, workshops, and client meetings, he recognized that his audiences were puzzled, confused, and excited - all at the same time - by the communication revolution called social media. Having grown his business Success Performance Solutions on internet marketing, helping clients integrate social media into their marketing and recruiting strategies was a natural fit. His success led to forming a new business unit Link Me, Tweet Me, Friend Me to help small and medium sized businesses use social media in their recruiting and marketing strategies.

An engaging and entertaining speaker, Ira captures his audience’s attention with a common-sense approach, dry sense of humor, and compelling command of workforce and demographic trends.  He speaks regularly to Vistage/Canada TEC CEO groups, association conferences and leadership events.

To schedule Ira:  717-291-4640 or 717-333-8286    Email: iwolfe@super-solutions.com /

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