You are a Marketing Superhero so you already have your social media policy in place to protect your brand and your IP (intellectual property). It’s the smart thing to do.

Are you using your social media policy for good or are you subverting your team’s core strengths?

It’s pretty easy to find examples and templates for all of the things that your Social Media Policy should include. The Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) provides well-worded boilerplate content that has already been ruled lawful by the NLRB in 2012.

Other, more current, examples are published by a wide variety of large corporations. These are cited often for both good and not-so-good options. Both Hubspot and Hootsuite offer great commentaries on key elements.  GM, for example, publishes both a short and long version that covers all their bases, clearly placing responsibility for awareness and compliance on the employee.

And compliance is the problem.

Focusing solely on compliance misses the opportunity for your social media policy to work for good.

Especially in smaller, more personal organizations, compliance alone can stifle the very culture that makes small businesses successful.

What if you expected your employees to use social media more?

Is it possible to encourage the culture we nurture among our teams to spill over into the online presence of each individual?

Are we brave enough to publicly celebrate the contributions of each other the way we used to do only in our Monday morning meetings with donuts?

What would a team strategy for social media look like instead of simply a social media policy focused on compliance?

Marketing from the C-suite perspective requires looking at the bigger picture. We can’t afford to hide our strengths behind compliance.

If you’d like to take a look at how to develop a social media policy for good, check out our web discussion about Using a Team Strategy on LinkedIn.