Social media has acquired a strong position in today's digital marketing. A well-executed social media marketing strategy brings in more leads/sales and also improves search engine rankings of a website.
Social media marketing has never been a problem for big businesses as they generally outsource this to professionals. But, when it comes to small businesses, they do it in-house taking the help of their employees due to financial constraints.
In-house social media marketing on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc., should be done carefully because even a simple mistake can cause irreversible damage to the business. For this reason, every small business should have a well framed policy to execute social media marketing effectively and leverage the benefits to the fullest.
In this article, we will discuss the most common rules that are applicable and useful for any small business while framing social media policy.
Initially, chose a trusted employee or group of employees with good knowledge on social media who can handle your small business social media marketing campaign. Then, frame a policy that clearly directs your employees on what to do and what not to while marketing.
Do's
Make employees understand the rules before they start: Before starting social media marketing, it is necessary for the employees to be educated about the purpose and, you should make them understand the rules to follow while executing. Allow your employees to execute social media marketing only when they understand the purpose and rules properly.
Make sure employees use only the platforms the company has assigned: Employees should use only the platforms and log in details assigned by the company. Make it clear that employees should not change the log in details because monitoring marketing campaign by the business owner will become difficult.
Inform your employees to act responsibly: The employee should frequently visit the business account and share quality inputs. This is very important because they are representing your company to millions of users/customers. So, they need to take the responsibility of presenting your small business in a professional manner.
Tell them to be courteous and polite to followers/customers: Social media is a two-way communication tool. They need to interact and engage with customers to build good relationship with them. While interacting with customers/followers, they need to be polite. Avoid being reactive to negative or abusive comments. Fighting words, gruesome language and bullying would land your business in trouble. So, give strict instructions to employees on this.
Let them stay on the topic: Assign your employee an area or product or a project of your business and inform them to stay on the topic assigned and share content that is relevant to the topic.
Ensure that they do not promise anything to the follower without an approval from your side: Offering discounts, deals, etc., to customers on social media marketing is a good idea and helps you increase number of customers. Make sure your employees don't manipulate or change the offers that are decided by you. If the employees plan to change anything, then they need to inform and take approval from you before promising the customers. Otherwise, promising and not delivering can affect the credibility of your business very badly.
Don't's
Employees should not reveal confidential information of your business: Employees should not reveal any confidential information or trade secrets of the business knowingly or unknowingly to followers/customers. Revealing business data is a serious issue and if the employee is involved in the act he may face legal actions. So, make it clear to them about maintaining confidential data and consequences to be faced if revealed.
Employees should not share unrealistic or fake information: Employee responsible for maintaining business account should share only genuine and accurate information. They shouldn't fake about the business to customers.
Employees shouldn't discriminate anyone on any basis: Employees should be professional and neutral while representing business. Discriminating followers/customers on grounds of color, creed, sex, disability, ethnicity, etc., on social media websites will reflect poor principles of your business and no customer would like to be associated with such businesses.
Employees shouldn't use business account to share personal content: Business account is only for business purpose. Employees should not share any personal information or content related to their personal interests on business account.
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