All Things WOM

A company’s social media policy serves, in its simplest form, as a guide to how a business, its employees, and anyone else speaking on behalf of the business should share opinions, beliefs, and recommendations with customers online.

Fast Company magazine recently examined social media policies from a range of businesses and found there “there is little consistency in the policies” and “the complexity of a corporate social media policy depends on the robustness of the corporate culture.”

Surprisingly, Walmart’s social media policy, especially with Twitter, is decidedly hands-off. Best Buy’s policy includes a long list of “dont’s.” CNN’s policy is rather strict. Read the full Fast Company article for great insights into the do’s and don’ts of drafting a social media policy.

WOMMA members have told us designing an effective social media policy isn’t easy. It requires a balance between using proper legal guidance with relevant marketing practices.

Recently, we held a webinar sharing insights into designing a social media policy. On the webinar were two lawyers and one marketer. Anthony Diresta (WOMMA’s General Counsel, Partner with Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP) and Luis Xavier Hernandez-Ochoa (Category Regional Counsel at Unilever) represented the lawyer side and I represented the marketer’s point of view.

This webinar coincided with the release of WOMMA’s Guide to Designing a Social Media Policy (.pdf file). Like the webinar, this guide offers a legal view and a marketer’s view. The legal view in the WOMMA guide comes in the form of a lawyer-friendly template policy. The marketer’s view is a three-pager detailing important decisions a company must make in developing their social media policy.

For an overview of both the legal side and the marketing side to designing an effective social media policy, watch this archived webinar…