If your organization doesn’t have a written social media policy, or if it’s more than a year old, it is time to give it some attention. Courts around the country continue to deal with the workplace and marketplace responsibilities, liabilities, and fallout from social media use. Why is this? Because the use of social media has sky rocketed in recent years and you absolutely have to be cybersecure, (you can find more information here). One thing above all has become clear: A thoughtful, well-tailored social media policy and training on it is going to be any organization’s best risk management tool. A growing number of companies have been burned by having no policy or an off-the-shelf policy. And simply putting together a solid policy and sticking it in the employee handbook binder does not help either. Two steps are required: Create a tailored policy, and then train your people on it.
Tailor, Swiftly
A good social media policy will address important questions like ownership and control over company-related social media accounts, responsibility and mitigation of harmful messaging, and other rules of the road. Having these issues decided before an incident or crisis is especially important because of the speed and the echo chamber effect of social media. Why doesn’t one policy work for any organization? Because not all tweeters are created equal, not all Facebook users follow similar pages, and not all TikTok users view the same content. Because of this, people are always eager to learn how to get more followers on tiktok and other social media platforms. Some of us operate in regulated professions or in industries where our quick communications online will come back to bite us in ways that our friends’ posts will not. We have seen time and again that social media commentary that would be harmless in some contexts is very harmful in others. Publicly traded companies, regulated professions, healthcare, and financial institutions, and organizations that provide services to children who can all very quickly find themselves in legal and public relations fiascoes. The solution is to give some thought and energy to assemble a social media policy that makes sense for your particular organization, and not necessarily for the one down the hall. Employees cannot be prohibited, for example, from using social media sites to discuss their working conditions. As tempting as it might be to adopt a social media policy of two words: “shut up,” such a policy when tested often winds up causing unintended harm. All these issues are time-consuming HR matters which can distract from the important matters at hand, meaning that time could be better spent elsewhere. It may be worth comparing PEO systems and providers that could help to streamline all HR concerns, allowing employees to get back to their primary responsibilities. See here for more information on what such a system could bring to your business – https://thepeopeople.com/peo-compare/.
Buy Some Pizza
A good social media policy is a risk management tool, in both prevention and in cover for after-the-fact accountability. But the prevention part does not work if nobody knows what that policy requires. My suggestion? Order some food and get everyone together for a lunch-and-learn. People show up for free lunch, and it’s a few bucks well spent. You will create and file your organization’s new or improved social media playbook in no time.
Don’t Panic
This is completely doable. The first step is getting it on someone’s To Do list. Contact a lawyer, HR consultant, or task someone internally with following up on it. Once someone is deputized, that person can work with management to identify the organization’s goals and fears from social media, and work on getting those put down in a way that is not overreaching. Then it will be time to pick up the phone and order lunch.