The issue of who can say what, where, when and how is something that’s always been on the minds of internal communicators. But with new social media platforms giving employees a voice in the business (and allowing senior leaders to exercise their voices too!), do we need to revisit communication guidelines for stakeholders?

 

Watching the Wikileaks saga unfold across the past few weeks, I’ve admittedly veered between cheering for transparency and freedom of information, to worrying about the risks to government and society if this kind of information release isn’t managed to some degree. To my mind, this reflects the challenge communicators face when it comes to social media in the workplace – how can we tap into the innovation and rich veins of insight it can provide, whilst ensuring some defence against inappropriate behaviour or information leaks?

 

I wrote in an earlier column about Melcrum’s 2010 global survey on internal communications’ use of social media. With over 2,600 responses, perhaps one of the most challenging areas the survey (and subsequent report) explores is that of governance. More than half (52.2%) of our survey respondents said they don’t have a policy in place, but acknowledged that that would have to change.

 

In the case studies also featured in our report, we were able to profile some companies who are leading the way in creating those guidelines.

 

Interestingly, those organisations all share one common theme when it comes to governance. Their guidelines are supplementary to standard communication guidelines. There’s no epic 520-page manual, but rather a few additional lines specific to social media. In many cases, organisations have simply taken the corporate values that already exist and used them to underpin their expectations of employees’ social media activities within the business – to reinforce the values at the heart of the business and avoid additional complexity. If you’re looking to create your own policy along these lines, I’d recommend http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php – a database of more than 100 policies from a wide range of organisations.

 

For now, if I were to boil down the common themes represented in the ‘best’ guidelines we’ve seen, there would be three – as exemplified in the guidelines created by Telstra, the Australian telecommunications company (featured in the database mentioned above and as a case study in our report). Its policy centres around the 3 Rs:

• Representation (‘Be clear about whom you are representing’)

• Responsibility (‘Take responsibility for ensuring that any references to our company are accurate and do not breach confidentiality requirements’), and

• Respect (‘Show respect for the individuals and communities with which you interact’).

 

The simplicity of these 3 elements respects the fact that our employees are grown-ups, for many of whom social media activity outside the workplace is a given. As they bring that desire to connect to the workplace, we owe them support but without the assumption that they don’t understand the implications of what they do on a blog or Yammer or Twitter – inside or outside the business.

 

Alas, I don’t have space here to explore that blurring of lines between internal and external comms that social media brings about. Should we have any control over how our employees conduct themselves on external social media platforms if they’re clearly affiliated to our company? It’s something we’ll be discussing at the next meeting of our Social Media Benchmarking Group and perhaps it’s also a valid topic for a later column…or for an offline chat? I’d love to hear your thoughts.