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The Importance of Having a Social Media Policy

Principles of Social Media Within a Business

Learning Outcome 4

A policy gives the employee's of a business a set of rules to deal with a certain type of situation. Every member of a business must deal with situations in the same way to best represent thier business. These policies are often put together by a designated person and the policy will often have to be approved by the director of a business (and sometimes others). A Social Media policy is tremendously important for any business using social media as it allows the employees of a business to understand what their responsibilities are when it comes to social media for their business. The policy will prevent accidental copyright, inapproriate posting of content, and many other things, while also giving employees the confidence to act on their own in most situations, unless the policy specifically says otherwise. A social media policy may also reduce legal risk to a business. If the policy clearly says not to do something and an employee does it anyway, the individual employee would be held responsible as opposed to the business as a whole.

Social Media Policies in a Business

Components of a Social Media Policy

Importance of a Reputation Management Policy

  • Appropriate Use - This let's employees know what is and what isn't appropriate use of social media at work
  • Online Privacy - This usually outlines the privacy settings that members of a business should adhere to in order to prevent unwanted situations such as online stalking
  • Complaints Process - The process used when a complaint is made about the business on social media. A negative comment about your business on social media can lead to a negative perception of your business
  • Training Requirements - This outlines what kind of training requirments are needed for staff. Some businesses may have their staff go through some basic social media training where as others may desire specific qualification such as 'Level 3 Social Media for Business'
  • Tone and Manner - The tone and manner with which a business and it's employees should represent themselves. For example at the National Careers Service I must convey messages and posts in an impartial manner
  • Behavior In and Out of Work - This outlines what behavior is appropriate both in and out of work. How an employee acts in their personal life can still effect how their company is viewed if the person is recognised by someone they have met in their professional life
  • Brand Values - This is what a customer should see/feel during their time interacting with a business, which also applies when a customer engages with a business via social media
  • Crisis Management - Outlines what should be done in the case of a crisis, e.g if a social media account in the business is hacked

Reputation management is the act of shaping the perception of a business by influencing the information about that entity. In other words, it's doing all that's possible to make sure your business has a good reputation online. Any business thaat has regular customers or that has interacted with a lot of customers is likely to have some form of reputation. Individuals like to let their opinions be known and they will do just that after a good or bad experience with a business.

Having a reputation management policy means that a business is making efforts to do just that, manage their reputation. It is hugely important, as it enables a business to prevent attaining a bad reputation for themselves as opposed to battling a bad reputation. Once a business had a bad reputation it can be extemely hard for them to clear their names. Examples include:

  • McDonald's - Never seem to be able to get away from suspicions of usings faulty meat or unhealthy ingredients. They have even tried to correct these perceptions by making adverts.
  • BP - After a huge oil spil that damaged both the environment and the wildlife around it, the BP's CEO stood down in disgrace due to the terrible reputation they had made for themselves. They continue to work to fix the problems they caused in the area of the oil spill as opposed to just making a one off payment and trying to forget about the incident
  • Frankie and Bennies - This company has a reputation (in my local area) of selling overpriced food and having sub-par service.

You could argue, however, that the businesses above are far too large to be able to perfectly manage their reputations.

Managing Perception Changes

  • Add to the positive information: Customers and critics opinions are key to the reputation of a business, so a business can do such things as publicise case studies of happy customers that they've met or post customer compliments on social media, to add more positivity about their business.
  • Maintain accurate information: On websites, social media pages and other forms of media, a business should be 100% sure that the information they are giving to customers is correct
  • Keep an eye on online reviews: If a business gets a bad review, they should make approriate changes to prevent more bad reviews piling up
  • Build a strong customer base: Having happy and loyal regular customers means that they can vouch for your business
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