About nine months ago, I wrote a
blog about social media guidelines. There wasn't much of a response to the post, but I wasn't surprised. Let's face it, social media guidelines don't exactly get the juices flowing. Suggesting to someone that they create a social media policy for their firm or organization is akin to recommending that they create a family budget or write down their personal goals. Everyone thinks it's a good idea, but why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?
I confess that a part of me had relegated social media guidelines to the employee rules scrapheap, along with the dress code and email policy. It had become just another policy to a create a positive and productive work environment. Nothing wrong with that, but it's hard to get anyone excited about using social media to grow a business if your starting point is nothing more than Page 21 of the Employee Handbook.
But then the NJSCPA's Digital Communications Manager Rachael Bell came across this
video from KPMG and I realized that social media guidelines can inspire action, not just manage it. Of course, not everyone has the money to produce a well-crafted video -- and it is that -- but its message of empowerment and engagement with professionalism and honesty can easily be distilled into a written form.
Watch the video and revisit your social media guidelines or get started on that policy. But remember, it's not just about managing employee behavior. It's about inspiring effective individual action. To paraphrase the video "Think beyond the traditional. Think social."