Social media has become an integral part of both private and professional life. Employees also use social media and are increasingly using it to talk about their employer and/or share and like their employer’s social media posts. Ideally, they act as spokespeople and multipliers. This also harbors risks and should be actively supported by the company.
Corporate influencers – i.e. employees who reach many people due to their expertise, reach and standing in the public eye – are ideal multipliers for company news. Either through their own posts or by sharing official company posts, they give the company content reach and carry it into their private networks. In addition to the fact that social media networks are increasingly limiting the reach of company pages (e.g. fan pages) and giving more and more space to private profiles, and also because “real people” radiate significantly more trust due to their expertise, good corporate influencer planning is actually part of every larger company. One of the building blocks of such a planned corporate influencer strategy are so-called “social media guidelines”. These guidelines are official rules of conduct for a company’s employees that clearly define what employees should and should not do on social networks.
Assistance for employees
“Social media guidelines always walk a fine line between helping employees, brand safety and intrusion into the private lives of employees and their private behavior on social networks. Good social media guidelines must therefore always combine both sides. Not an easy task.
Only one building block – but an important one
As already mentioned, social media guidelines are just one of many components. A corporate influencer strategy has many areas and topics. From training, newsrooms and news pools to incentives, there are many levels to consider. Over the years, through conversations, articles, other “social media guidelines” and other strategic considerations, I have collected 12 points that I believe belong in “social media guidelines”. I offer this list here as a PDF (Dropbox) for free download.
I look forward to receiving opinions and comments on the guidelines. I also highly recommend Dr. Kerstin Hoffmann and Klaus Eck [LinkedIn profile] on this topic. Both are luminaries in the field of corporate influencers.
