In a follow-up to the last post about CIO’s banning social media usage for the employees, here is how to build a social media policy for your company.

1. Bring everyone together and have a discussion about social media. Let the employees who are experienced in social media share their views with employees who are newbies. Get everyone to share their thoughts on the topic.

2. Appoint a cross-functional team to start building a social media policy based on both business and social media goals. Social Media Governance has over a 100 examples of social media policies from such companies as Cisco, Dell, ESPN, Kodak, Microsoft, the US Government and Yahoo. Focus on guidelines rather what you can and cannot say.

3. Launch the policy, but have periodic review of what is acceptable. Use missteps as learning experiences not as an opportunity to punish someone.