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Defining a corporate social media policy can be a daunting task for any manager.  Instead of sending press releases out as being the voice of the company, everyone can help create a positive force that other organizations would be hard to rival without the help of social media.  There are several aspects for creating a corporate social media policy that a manager should be aware of:

• The legality of everyone using these mediums;
• What is the corporate mission statement and how can it translate to the new policy
• Getting the advice of everyone in the corporation via a social media bullet point survey

If your organization has blogging guidelines, it should be updated with the recommended social media policy.

During 2010, there are going to be a few people who use social media in their daily lives.  Any organization that recognizes this and harnesses the potential for doing well can create a word of mouth campaign that will last for years to come.  The legal aspects to creating a social media policy will, at first appear to be a difficult task, but the lawyers or administrators in your organization are already dealing with this issue in their own lives.  They are considering what they tweet, what kind of pictures they post to Facebook and when they check-into places on a location-based service.  If the company has a policy towards what is posted and when, use this as a starting point for the company lawyer or administrator.  Have them draft a survey asking the various departments about who uses social media sites and if they would like to help the company spread the message.  In any organization, there are a few people who would be excited with the prospect of showing their manager and their immediate boss by taking the extra initiative to tweet or post to the company Facebook fan page during the weekends.

Once the survey has been completed and the company lawyer or administrator has looked over the suggestions, compile them into a one page list of bullet points that each department in the company will choose as their favorites.  After each department picks a few of these bullet points, re-visit the mission statement for the company.  Do any of these points reflect sentiment more than the others?  Will any of these points hinder the ability for quick responsiveness towards an issue?  Finally and almost as important, will these points create an atmosphere that aligns with the corporate culture?

Once the final bullet points have been picked, drafted to reflect the corporate mission statement and aligned correctly with the corporate culture, send it company-wide.  Ask the managers to review the new corporate social media policy with their immediate reports.  By doing this, everyone who uses social media day to day will understand that what they say using social media services will create positive word of mouth.  Many times there is not an immediate impact of this word of mouth, but something that a mail room employee says could affect what the president of the company is asked at the next press conference.

Christopher Rauschnot is an accomplished social media and engagement consultant to corporations worldwide.  He has made a positive impact in the hospitality, travel, nightlife, entertainment and technology industries.  He has been directly involved with the creation of several corporate media policies and is a conference speaker.  Most recently, he spoke about brand engagement and at the Consumer Electronics Show 2010 – Social Media Jungle presented by Jeff Pulver. He is an active user of Twitter at (@24k and @24kMedia), and he has a 24k Media Facebook Page. He also blogs about technology at The Mac Wizard.  Christopher enjoys traveling to destinations while interacting with social media influencers in each city he visits – look for him next in Las Vegas at the NAB Show, April 10-15!