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Defining the Social Media Presence Within Your Corporate Social Media Policy


Defining the Social Media Presence Within Your Corporate Social Media Policy

Social media is here to stay so if your company hasn’t moved online yet, it’s probably time. But where do you start? How do you define a social media presence?

The first thing to lay out in a company's social media policy is the purpose, says Sharlyn Lauby in her webinar, 10 Things to Include in Every Social Media Policy. What is the reason you're moving online or what do you hope to achieve by entering the Twitterverse? What role do you see your company filling?

A company’s social media presence is how they portray themselves online through their social networking accounts and activity. Building a social media presence starts with developing your goals. Lauby recommends asking questions like, “why are we out there?" and "what are we hoping to gain from it?”.

Your ideal social media presence is built through the practical features of your online accounts:

  • What type of content you post
  • How frequently you post
  • How engaging you are
  • Who you friend or follow
  • Who friends or follows you

Lauby points to Wells Fargo as a trendsetter for banks joining the social networking scene. The first company to designate a VP of Social Media, Wells Fargo creates enviable content and blogs like a pro. They've continued to follow new social media trends by also joining Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest.

Of course, it’s important that you understand your goals, strategy, and implementation, but you also need to communicate all that with your employees too. Once your objectives are clear, you need to share this strategy for everyone to understand. Just like every other project in the workplace, your employees need to be on board because your social media strategy won't succeed without them.

10 Things to Include in Every Social Media Policy

In the webinar clip below, Sharlyn Lauby talks about social media purposes, Wells Fargo as a trendsetter, and the importance of information sharing.

A transcribed version of the clip is available below the video.


Sharlyn Lauby:

We’re going to talk about ten different things to include in your social media policy.

I want to launch into the first one right away. It’s tell people the purpose.

This is a great quote from Steve Ellis, the Executive Vice President at Wells Fargo, talking about blogging and blogging as one of the ways that people get their message out and saying it’s a great way to share with people what Wells Fargo is all about.

Wells Fargo has really done a great job of being a trendsetter in the banking industry when it comes to social media.

They’re one of the first banks to have a blog, they also have a student loan blog and a business banking blog.

They’ve also been one of the first places out there to have a VP of Social Media.

What they’ve done is been able to create a strategy for social media, and this is one of the first things that your organization is going to do.

You’re going to say, why are we out there? What are we hoping to gain from it?

Then we have the ability to share that with employees and make sure that they understand what the organization is trying to do so that they can support it.

Just like anything in your organization, when employees understand the mission or they understand why something is happening, then it only makes sense that you would do the same when it comes to social media.

Then if you take a look you can see an example of the Wells Fargo blog, and it gives you some sense of they’re doing more than just banking.

They’re trying to demonstrate to people that they are a good community partner and some of the things that they do in the community to benefit the citizens of the community, not just give your money to us.