Our social media starter plan is a low-cost, high impact engagement which allows companies to secure a strong social media foundation. We incorporate elements from three of our services; content, networking and optimization to create your company’s social media biography for placement on the top search engines and social media platforms. The result of this exercise for your company is increased website traffic and the first step in establishing an effective social media presence.

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.

54% of CIOs prohibit any social media use in the office according to a survey of 1,400 CIOs from across the country conducted by Robert Half Technology. Another 36% of companies limit usage by employees to either “business only” or “limited personal use”. And only 10% of companies allow any type of personal use of social media.

Wow. Those are staggering numbers and a big, big mistake.

While rampant use of social media by their employees could be unproductive for companies, it is a missed opportunity for your employees to connect with your customers. It is important that employees have an opportunity to play with social media in a business setting in order to understand the tools and then they need to be properly educated about how to effectively use the tools to promote the company’s brands and culture. Banning social media just puts your company behind all the other companies that are using social media and diminishes your chances for long-term viability.

Social Media Campfire

A good analogy for social media is like sitting around the campfire. There are stories to be told and no one feels the urgency to fill the pauses. There is a good deal of listening and reflecting. You get to know the people as everyone shares and contributes.

We have put together a presentation on social media marketing — outlining what it is, the best way to get started with social media, the methodology and a number of company examples of best practices. If you would like see it, just give us a call and we can schedule a time for an online presentation.