Why Doesn’t Your Company Have a Social Media Policy?

A few weeks back The Wall Street Journal released their policy statement and guidelines for employees using social media. For a few weeks before that, I had been working on the ideas for this post and the publication of the WSJ guidelines has prompted me to hit the publish button.

As expected, there are plenty of ‘experts’ weighing in on the document. One of my favorite sites, Mashable.com, published an article that took the WSJ to task for making the policy too restrictive and asking “how can social media harm us and what we can do to prevent it?” Totally off base here, with all due respect. Stan Schroeder, the author of the post, takes issue with a few main sections of the policy.

“Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.

Don’t discuss articles that haven’t been published, meetings you’ve attended or plan to attend with staff or sources, or interviews that you’ve conducted.

The first part is simply respect for your co-workers and serves to present a ‘united front’ against reader feedback. Not that you have to agree with everything your co-workers print, but you don’t want to find yourself being cited as a critic of your fellow WSJ employees. Second, as a traditional news organization, the WSJ places a value on breaking stories. We could argue about the validity of this concern, but it is what it is and the second bullet point addresses that. Some of the other complaints were with a section that suggested not friending or following potential sources. Again, this is simply journalistic ethics. You need to protect your sources, both from poaching by other journalists and from exposure. To ding the WSJ for these decisions is to miss the basics of journalistic ethics and privacy.

Though I disagree with a few points in the WSJ document, I have to give them kudos for codifying a policy. My company, LexisNexis, does not have a global social media policy. Some of our individual business units do, but there’s no LexisNexis or ReedElseiver policy for those without a unit level policy. Mashable has another good article on this subject, “Should Your Company Have a Social Media Policy?“ In a word, YES!!

Businesses need to get with the program on this one. Specifically, they need to realize that people use social media and in most cases, they show their employer by default. Facebook, for example, allows me to connect with other LN employees while LinkedIn allows me to solicit recommendations, connect with other employees, and comment on other LN employees. At least the WSJ has a policy in place.

There are benefits to both employers and employees. First, having a codified policy allows employers to sanction any employee that violates their policies. Without a policy, it will be challenging for a company to sanction or terminate an employee for a perceived violation. Let us not forget the cases of Heather B. Anderson or Jessica Cutler.

In addition to the benefits to employers, having a social media policy in place provides piece of mind and guidance to employees. Without a written policy, employees are on their own to determine what is acceptable and what isn’t. While a little common sense is great and should provide sufficient guidance, people make bad decisions and a written policy removes the ambiguity from the situation.

Bottom Line: If your company does not have a policy, you’re behind the times. It is essential that every company or nonprofit organization provide employees with social media guidance and direction.