Best Practices in Social Media Governance

DION LINDSAY

PUBLISHED BY

Best Practices in Social Media Governance

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Best Practices in Social Media Governance

DION LINDSAY

PUBLISHED BY

Contents
Executive summary ............................................................................................................. V About the author and contributors.....................................................................................VII Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................IX Part One: A primer in social media governance Chapter 1: What is social media?....................................................................................... 3 Just how big is social media in the UK? .................................................................................. 3 Chapter 2: Why govern social media? ................................................................................ 7 What is governance? ............................................................................................................ 7 The benefits of social media .................................................................................................. 7 The risks of social media ....................................................................................................... 8 What does governance entail? ............................................................................................... 9 Chapter 3: The legal context Protecting your IP on the internet ...................................... 11 The UK perspective ............................................................................................................. 11 The US perspective ............................................................................................................. 12 Law and governance ........................................................................................................... 13 Data protection .................................................................................................................. 14 Chapter 4: Governance structures and documentation ..................................................... 15 Creating the structure .......................................................................................................... 15 Achieving the right balance ................................................................................................. 16 Governance documents ...................................................................................................... 17 Risk versus reward Setting examples .................................................................................. 20 Communicating the policy ................................................................................................... 20 Resources ........................................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 5: Creating a social media policy ........................................................................ 23 By Lee Hopkins Do we really need a social media policy? ............................................................................. 23 Employees The case for a social media policy .................................................................... 26 Writing your own social media policy ................................................................................... 27

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Contents

Who should create our social media policy? ......................................................................... 28 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 6: Managing social media participation .............................................................. 31 Herding cats How to encourage without strangling creativity ............................................. 31 Training users and managing expectations ............................................................................ 32 Skills and training for new and existing staff .......................................................................... 33 Instilling values ................................................................................................................... 36 Dos and donts ................................................................................................................... 36 Chapter 7: Managing social media impact ....................................................................... 39 Supportive, disruptive and transformative trends .................................................................... 39 Monitoring ......................................................................................................................... 39 Defining success: Return on investment (ROI) and impact analysis .......................................... 40 Part Two: Social media governance in practice Case studies and example policies Case study 1: Dominos Pizza........................................................................................... 45 Case study 2: The Johnson & Johnson Motrin advertisement ............................................ 47 Case study 3: Dell ........................................................................................................... 49 Case study 4: ChapStick ................................................................................................... 51 Example policy 1: BBC...................................................................................................... 53 Example policy 2: The American Institute of Architects ...................................................... 61 Example policy 3: IBM ...................................................................................................... 65 Index ............................................................................................................................... 71

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Executive summary
THE USE of social media by enterprises is now an established fact: few organisations with marketing ambitions will ignore the potential benefits of having a presence on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and the conclusions that their customer base will draw if they are absent from these arenas. Nevertheless social media presents an unfamiliar environment for external communication departments, one where traditional models of controlling the content and distribution of messages to the outside world no longer hold sway. Participation in the social media world is an instantaneous activity, not one underpinned by thorough research into cause and effect, return on investment or risk management. Highly publicised adverse incidents chart the dangers of misreading the social media environment: over-reactions to angry postings and failure to respond to criticism have both had harsh effects on the commercial reputation of companies, and the strategies they have formed in the wake of such incidents have been costly to maintain with little assurance of success. At the same time, enterprises see the results of positive stories or images going viral on social media and lust after the benefits these can bring. In this Wild West environment, something akin to a gold rush has been forming as companies create advertising campaigns specifically for YouTube and Facebook, and try to create and protect a positive presence on Wikipedia. Best Practices in Social Media Governance maps this environment, documenting the nature of social media, its uptake, and the benefits and risks involved in participation for your organisation. These are illustrated with case studies and examples of social media policies and guidelines. Above all, the report addresses the need for governance within organisations, and what it might take to maintain control of participation at the same time as allowing freedom for benefits to accrue in intrinsically unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. Following an introduction to the basic principles and current scope of social media in the work environment in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 demonstrates the need for governance in this context, including a summary of the standards and resources that should be in place in order to establish a successful strategy. Chapter 3 covers the legal considerations relevant to social media governance, including perspectives from both the UK and the US. Effective governance requires the establishment of an internal structure for the promotion, management and monitoring of your social media activities. Your organisation may also wish to create governance documents that clearly state your strategies and policies. Chapter 4 covers these topics in detail, demonstrating how to integrate your policies with existing organisational strategies, encourage top level buy-in and ensure that your documentation is fit for purpose. This

Executive summary

section includes practical examples that will help you to make the best decisions to suit your organisations specific requirements. In Chapter 5, guest contributor Lee Hopkins discusses the case for and against a social media policy for your organisation, and goes on to outline a strategy for creating an effective policy that staff will actually use and abide by. Managing participation in social media activity means balancing your strategic objectives with the practical aspects of online communication including the potential risks facing social media users. Chapter 6 details practical examples to help you train your employees, manage expectations and instil organisational values into their activities. This section also includes helpful dos and donts which will aid the successful creation of your social media policies. Chapter 7 discusses measuring and managing the impact of your social media activity, particularly where additional expenditure must be justified with a costbenefit analysis. Part Two focuses on social media governance in practice, with case studies and example policies. Four case studies illustrate the social media problems and their solutions faced by Dominos Pizza, Johnson & Johnson, Dell and ChapStick. These cautionary tales exemplify the best and worst approaches to take when faced with an online backlash, and will help you to put in place effective policies for your own social media activity. They illustrate too how difficult is to be sure of the right approach to such incidents. Three example social media policies are included, from the BBC, The American Institute of Architects and IBM, the latter considered to be a gold standard in social media governance.

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About the author and contributors

Dion Lindsay Author
Dion Lindsay is an experienced knowledge manager, consultant and trainer. His UK based consultancy, Dion Lindsay Consulting, works with large charities, membership organisations and the public and private sectors on knowledge sharing and management strategies. He is also partner in a world wide consultancy for remote collaboration techniques, CyberWorkplace.com. He writes the well-known intranets column in eLucidate, the e-journal for emerging topics in electronic information management (see http://www.ukeig.org.uk/elucidate), and is a committee member of its publishing body. He is an experienced workshop facilitator on topics including social media in the workplace, for the Ark Group, and intranets, presented with Martin White of Intranet Focus. Dion can be contacted at dion@dionlindsayconsulting.com. Lee Hopkins Contributor Lee Hopkins is a management psychologist and business communicator with nearly 30 years experience in helping businesses communicate better, for better business results. At the leading edge of business communicators in Australia, Lee understands the transformative nature of social media. He spends a considerable amount of his time advising businesses, business communities and individual business communicators on the tectonic cultural shifts that new communications technology is facilitating and how they can best position themselves to take advantage of them. He is also currently undertaking doctoral research at the University of South Australias School of Communication, looking at how the new social communication landscape has impacted on senior communicators roles and responsibilities. An internationally sought-after speaker, Lee combines his passion for employee and online business communication with his dynamic presentation skills to create once seen, never forgotten live experiences. He has over 200 articles on business communication available for reading at LeeHopkins.com and blogs, podcasts and vidcasts at LeeHopkins.net. Lee can be contacted at Lee@LeeHopkins.com. Alex Marks Contributor Alex formed Fresh & Frank Consulting in 2010, after many years experience working for some of the worlds largest companies. He recognised that business success is driven from the blend of offline and digital, not one over the other; and that clients were looking for grown-up support that had been there and done it and had the confidence to tell them what they didnt want to hear. He has over 16 years agency and client side experience across a broad range of clients and sectors, including retail, telecommunications, broadcast and tourism. He has worked internationally for eBay, helping to set up its advertising business. At Microsoft he was responsible for the UK marketing of its advertising division, which included the successful launch of Microsoft Adcenter in 2006.

VII

About the author and contributors

Prior to this Alex worked at digital media agency i-level, where he was marketing and new business director. He has also worked in traditional media for companies such as Capital Radio, Classic FM, and Zenith Media. He is a published author, a regular commentator, writer and conference speaker on digital marketing issues and a key blogger for The Marketing Society. His interests include music, running and boxing, all of which he regularly still indulges despite his recent realisation that he might be getting a bit old for all this. Alex can be contacted at alex@freshandfrank.co.uk.

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