There's a lot to consider when it comes to representing your brand on social media sites, including what guidelines you need (if any) to protect yourself.
Social media mishaps happen all the time. Who hasn't said something on a personal blog or Twitter, or on their Facebook status updates that they haven't regretted later? But, when it comes to a company's reputation, what's said on social media sites can be much more damaging. Take the Domino's debacle last April. Two employees thought it would be funny to post a video on YouTube that showed them violating health codes while preparing food, such as passing gas on sandwiches, in a Domino's kitchen in North Carolina. The video garnered millions of views on YouTube, but the problem was the comments that disgusted customers were posting on Twitter. Dominos was in danger of losing many loyal customers because they didn't have a Twitter account and weren't able to respond to the social media public right away. Needless to say they started a Twitter account the next day to start fielding customer concerns.
While this incident is one of the more extreme cases of what can happen when employees represent your company on social media, it nevertheless is a warning to any company — private and public — to be informed about the potential risks of using social media for business. But that's not to say there aren't countless rewards for employees advocating for your brand on social media sites. If your company is active in this space, the first thing you need to consider is the issue of accountability and how much or how little reign your employees should be given.
When it comes to your social media policies, every company is going to differ on what type of engagement is acceptable, says Andy Beal, CEO of Trackur.com, an online reputation monitoring site, and author of the book Radically Transparent. Beal, who advises companies of all sizes on how to effectively manage their reputation on the Internet, believes that any company that has a social media presence these days can benefit from having some type of policy in place, but he specifies that it need only include what is necessary to protect the company legally and financially.
At Animax Entertainment, a Van Nuys, California-based boutique online production agency that has produced interactive media campaigns for big brands like Carl's Jr. and MTV, the company's confidentiality agreement with clients precludes them from discussing any upcoming project before it is released. Because of the legal agreement that was already in place, Animax's president Michael Bellavia felt it was necessary to include a couple of lines in their employee handbook to clarify that the confidentiality agreement extended to employee interactions on social media sites.
Once a campaign is launched, employees have free reign in terms of what they say about a project online, but typically the social media interactions that happen involve employees spreading the word about a new campaign and responding to audience feedback. While not all the feedback from viewers is positive – "there's always going to be people who have negative comments," says Bellavia, Animax is not overly concerned with how employees respond, as long as they don't get into an argument over opinions. "Once a show is out there, we can't really change what we did, and the creative process is just something that's very subjective," he says. In that sense, Bellavia has opted to keep the company's social media policy somewhat informal so as to allow creative exchanges to take place. Similarly, Zappos, the online shoe retailer, has just a single phrase that serves as their social media policy: "Be real and use your best judgment."
Even when a company has a clear social media policy in place that provides more specifications as to what employees aren't allowed to post, there is no guarantee that everyone will represent the company exactly as you want. In crafting the necessary guidelines, Beal advises companies to keep in mind the ultimate function of social media as an outreach tool. "The more restrictions that you place on employees, the less room you give them to be a real asset to your online reputation," says Beal. "If you have an employee blogging policy that has hundreds of restrictions, you're stifling the ability for those employees to be ambassadors for the company."
Plus, it's not always the case that a negative interaction online turns out to be damaging. In fact, there are often positive results to an employee speaking their mind, as was Michael Hubbard's experience with a junior employee at his Raleigh, North Carolina-based advertising agency Media Two. Social media is at the core of Media Two's operations and everyone at the company, which has approximately 25 employees, has access to the Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts, as well as the company blog. Hubbard designated five people who consistently blog for the company, but Media Two's policy when it comes to blogging is that anyone can put up a post without it being read or edited beforehand.
