Social Media Policy for Businesses
Your employees use social media. They use it at home, at work, sometimes for work. With so many people transitioning to working from home, social media use is on the rise as well. This can actually help you earn business (hello, Facebook business pages!). However, there are so many places that employees’ carelessness can lead your company into trouble. It’s important to have policies and procedures surrounding your social media practices, and to periodically review these procedures once you have them in place.
Why does this matter? Social media misuse can tarnish your reputation, your company’s reputation, privacy breaches may occur, legal or media inquiries about your business may occur, and lastly, posting on personal social media is not work! All of these cause disruptions of some kind to your business, whether it’s because someone doesn’t want to do business with so-and-so at your company, or whether an employee accidentally breaches privacy of a valued client.
Some suggestions for insurance purposes to include in your social media policy include the following:
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The employer should be able to view employee social media accounts
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Have a list of prohibited content to post about
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No divulgence of personal information
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Remind employees that posts on social media may be referred to when interactions take a
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negative turn
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Discourage images of suppliers or customers – or at the very least, get written permission
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When an employee posts on social media, remember that affects your business’s image
This is by no means a comprehensive list of considerations when you’re making your social media policy. Insurance companies may ask if you have a social media policy when you’re requesting liability insurance. Aside from being prepared for this, creating the policy is important so your employees have a clear guideline for how to act online. Even with the guideline, there may be slip ups, but at least you have done your best regarding the social media policy, which is really all you can do.
Happy posting!
