Have you stopped to consider what if something went wrong? What would you do if you had a PR crisis and your Facebook fan page became filled with negative comments? What would happen if an employee breached your confidentiality agreement by tweeting out about the latest project they were working on? Do you know what you would do or who would handle it?

As the sparkle fades on social media a bit, we begin to see it as a tool for communicating and not the solution to all of our problems. We need to consider how social media is moving the bottom line and how to protect your brand, employees and your content. Being prepared or having these conversations before something happens (and I really hope nothing ever does) is a wiser strategy then the old wait and see approach.

Starting a B2B Social Media Policy
First off, you may want to look into your existing communications policy, confidentiality agreements, contract compliance, intellectual policy and more. Perhaps the language you need is right in your existing policies and you just need to add text to include communicating with technology like blogs and social media sites.

If you do not have an existing communications policy, your social media policy does not need to be complicated. You should just state three major points:

1. What your business will and will not do online
2. What your employees can and cannot do online
3. What the public can and cannot do with your content

You can get as specific as you want. Make sure you have enough to cover yourself and always talk with your lawyer. They may have suggestions for you as well. One of the most difficult aspects is defining what your employees can and cannot do. Decide who the voice of your company is and how you want that voice to sound.

Creating a social media policy usually starts with some difficult conversations. Include your lawyer, marketing people, senior staff and IT in the conversation. Determine what you do not want to happen and you can work backwards on the steps you would put in place to prevent that from happening. Establish a chain of comment, a response policy (who and how someone would respond to a less-than-glowing comment).

Some other important things to consider when drafting a social media policy
Establishing guidelines for your staff – Determining what is and what is not ok for your employees is difficult. Many businesses still block social networks from work computers. That doesn’t mean they are not still participating through work-arounds or their smartphones. The bottom line is social networks should not interfere with their job performance.

Keep your policy open for review – As we all know by now, technology is moving at a rapid pace. Your communications or social media policy should be reviewed regularly and updated as necessary.

Guidelines may be enough – As Kipp wrote earlier this year, you do not need to overcomplicate your policy so that no one even wants to read it. A simple set of guidelines may be enough like what Coca Cola released this year. I also like IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines.

Training and conversations are more powerful than polices and punishments – At our office our social media policy is a loose guideline but if you are going to provide content about our company, share in our marketing efforts and use social media sites on company time you are required to have a long conversation with our VP of Marketing (um, that is me). In that conversation we talk about expectations, content that is acceptable and things that are not acceptable. The more time you spend training people on the correct way to use these new tools and explaining why your policy is they way it is, the less time you will spend policing your staff.

What do you do for a social media policy at your company? Do you just wait and see?

Amanda O’Brien is VP of Marketing at Hall Web Services, one of Maine’s largest web development firms. Follow her on Twitter at @amanda_pants

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This week Coca-Cola released their social media policy. It is a three page document that pretty clearly outlines corporate expectations. If one of the largest companies in the world can condense its guidelines into three pages, then so can you.

Coca-Cola Company’s Online Social Media Principles

I am not saying that Coca-Cola’s document is perfect, however, it organizes information well and uses lists and bullets instead of using long paragraphs that sound like legal documents.

What do you like about this policy? Does you organization have a policy? How is your policy organized?

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I am going to embed the video, but also list the tips below. You can watch the video for more explanation on each tip, but if you just want the overview, read on.

Ten Tips for Establishing a Social Media Policy from David B Thomas on Vimeo.

1. Get everyone together and create a council

2. Invite the skeptics as well as the evangelists

3. Involve the practitioners

4. Get legal and HR involve from the start

5. Determine how to deal with conflict

6. Include best practices

7. Policy needs to reflect company personality

8. Publish your policy online (which Dave has not been able to do at SAS)

9. Communicate policy to employees constantly

10. Lead by example

And if you have any questions or comments, go over to Dave’s blog and leave them for him. He likes comments.

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This post is filled with examples from large companies that sell products and services to other companies. These are good models to review as you develop your own social media policies. There is not much difference between social media policies for B2B and B2C companies. In both cases, employees are representing their companies, whether on company-sponsored platforms, on other third party blogs, or on social networking sites. Even in instances where employees are expressing their own views which don’t represent the company’s views, they are still part of the company’s online presence.

The first place to start is with the need for social media policies. No matter the size of company, there needs to be an understanding of how employees can use social media. This can be formal or informal, but without even the most basic guidelines, misunderstandings are sure to occur. Even if you are operating a sole proprietorship, you need a social media policy for how you present yourself to clients and prospects.

With larger companies, these policies are hammered out by committees that frequently include HR and legal, and are shared either on an intranet for internal access, or on public-facing websites for all to see. In the age of transparency, many companies want these policies public, so customers can understand a company’s approach to social media.

A social media policy represents a company’s culture. Sun begins their policy with a very clear statement about the company’s thoughts on social media. “By speaking directly to the world, without prior management approval, we are accepting higher risks in the interest of higher rewards. We don’t want to micro-manage, but here is some advice that we expect you to follow to help you manage that risk.”

Some companies acknowledge that their employees are adults and take a professional approach to representing their company on social media sites that is no different than staffing a booth at a trade show. For example, Cisco reminds employees that “common sense is the best guide if you decide to post information in any way relating to Cisco,” while Headset Bros makes it a little more personal: “Never post anything you would be afraid for your Mom to see.” And finally, Gartner reminds employees to “be personable and have fun. Web participation is about enjoying personal interactions, not delivering corporate communications.”

One of the earliest social media policies was created by IBM in 2005. This policy was created by employees to best determine how to participate in the blogging conversation. IBM continues to update their online, and very public, document as the social web changes and grows. They view this participation as critical to company operation. “IBM is increasingly exploring how online discourse through social computing can empower IBMers as global professionals, innovators and citizens.”

Many companies would like their employees to clearly identify themselves as an employee of the company, however, they must acknowledge that the thoughts and opinions are personal and do not represent the companies views. This is even true on many company blogs.

Your Internet posting should reflect your personal point of view, not necessarily the point of view of Cisco. Because you are legally responsible for your postings, you may be subject to liability if your posts are found defamatory, harassing, or in violation of any other applicable law. When posting your point of view, you should neither claim nor imply you are speaking on Cisco’s behalf, unless you are authorized in writing by your manager to do so.

As transparency continues to be important, Intel wants its employees to acknowledge mistakes. “Did you screw up? If you make a mistake, admit it. Be upfront and be quick with your correction. If you’re posting to a blog, you may choose to modify an earlier post—just make it clear that you have done so.”

Here is a growing list of social media policies, which includes the above B2B examples, as well as examples from other categories. If there are other examples of social media policies that you have used to create yours, let us know in the comments below.

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