Pub. 1 Issue 4

19 WINTER 2014 how employees may participate for business purposes. Who speaks for the company? What does the company consider to be inappropriate usage? How will you bal- ance restrictions and the rights of employees to talk about sensitive issues such as pay or working conditions? After all, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has de- cided that both these areas are protected ones, even if it means disparaging an employer or bad publicity for the business. Actually writing something down is important. If you are ever audited, you will then have the appropri- ate defense in hand. 3. Write a content plan and document an approval process. This means making a way to monitor social media, test controls, and report data about effectiveness to the main decision makers. Social media moves fast, so you need to have something in place that will allow employees to monitor what is going on and react as fast as possible in response, particularly if the publicity is bad. Having a content plan allows employees to measure what is going on against a standard. Having an approval process gives accountability to specific people and prevents problems from going unnoticed. 4. Any company using social media needs the right tools to reach its goal and enforce its policies. Technology makes it possible to monitor both activity and compliance with the company’s policies. But be aware that third-party vendors are often responsible for due diligence; in other words, you need to delegate, but be careful about who you select. 5. No policy will work unless you train people about what they are supposed to do, and then enforce the rules you’ve taught them. Teach everyone at the company, and refresh their memories on a regular basis. Surprisingly, you need a social media policy even if your company has decided to limit or stay out of any kind of social- media participation. The fact is that social media will impact your company even if you are doing your best to minimize risk by making the target (the company) as small as possible within the world of social media. You are still vulnerable because, like it or not, you have both a brand name and com- pany value. Your best chance to defend your reputation lies in making the choice to define your company’s reputation before someone else does. And the thing about social media that makes it so very dangerous is the fact that it has a long memory. Once information has been disseminated on the Internet, it is never going to go away again unless the entire Internet disappears. What do you think the odds are for that? How can you make a good impression online and minimize any risk to your company’s reputation? Here are some guide- lines to keep in mind: 1. Stay relevant by providing good customer service. A mes- sage that is obviously aimed at everyone works for no one. Be honest, be intelligent, and be personal. 2. Stay on top of monitoring. You can’t take the night, the weekend, or the holidays off. Make sure someone is moni- toring your social media efforts all the time. 3. Have an action plan that can go into effect fast, and train employees to implement that plan effectively. If something negative is going on, you want to nip that negativity as soon as possible. The longer it lasts, the more it becomes the story, and the more it ref lects on your company. You don’t want that. You need to have an action plan even if you don’t participate in social media, because like it or not, social media is aware of you despite your best efforts to ignore it. It’s a brave new world out there in the world of social media — don’t let that newness bite you professionally. Make the new world of social media work to your benefit so your company can enhance its performance and its profitability.  THINK ABOUT IT: THE DEFINITION OF SOCIAL MEDIA IS ANY MEDIA WITH INTERACTIVE ONLINE COMMUNICATION, WHICH MEANS THAT EVERY SINGLE COMMUNICATION THAT TAKES PLACE HAS THE POTENTIAL TO HURT OR HELP YOUR BUSINESS, WHETHER IT IS FROM AN EMPLOYEE OR A CUSTOMER.