TOP TIPS: Best practice for social media etiquette
Ten action points to help IC professionals ensure they aren't breaking any taboos when delivering strategies via social media.
Trying to keep up with modern social media tools and social network platforms can be tricky for a busy internal communications professional. In SCM journal's forthcoming June edition, Euan Semple will be providing us with a roundup of ten social media technologies to watch out for in the world of internal comms. To build upon this theme, let's take a look at a selection of unofficial rules to follow when using social media and networks at your organization:
1. Be clear and concise
The best messages are those that take a short time to read and can convey a point succinctly. Don’t lose your audience’s attention with pages of text and try to use images, different fonts and colours to help present your message in an appealing way and to highlight the important sections.
The best messages are those that take seconds to read and convey a point perfectly.
2. Choose your weapon wisely
Consider carefully how you would like to deliver your communication: Do not send important, confidential messages via a public medium such as Twitter. This may seem like an obvious point, but accidents do happen! The main idea is to make sure the tool you are using is appropriate for the message you wish to send or strategy you wish to implement.
3. Do not expect instant responses or give short deadlines
When communicating with your organization's workforce and asking them to complete a survey/task, try and be considerate to everyone's different circumstances: while one person may have a window to get back to you right away, another may be swamped with their workload. Also remember, not everyone checks social media messages straight away.
4. Target your message in a variety of ways
With the wide range of tools available, why use just one method of social media to convey a message when you can use a number of networks and devices to get your point across? Of course, not every company will allocate funding in their budget/time for a wide variety of social media tools/networks, but try and make the best out of what you have access to.
5. Talk to everyone at the same level
Always expect people to have the same level of intelligence: Don’t talk down to different sectors of your organization in your messages or send out different messages (unless necessary). This is important because you don't wish to alienate any employees or create any unnecessary division.
Why use just one method of social media to convey a message when you can use a number of networks and devices to get your point across?
6. Offer information of value
When thinking of connecting with your employees through social media/networks, think about what you are offering them. Are you providing them with information of value or could you combine different messages you have to bump up content importance? This way you won't 'spam' people with different, less important messages.
7. Check content, grammar and spelling
This is standard procedure for delivering any message, but with social media and social networks, once a message has got out it can be forwarded, retweeted, posted, liked etc. You only have once chance to get it right, so always proof your copy!
8. Never post when overly tired, jet lagged, angry or upset
This is when mistakes can happen, so choose a time when your schedule is clear and you are fully rested and of sound mind to put together your communication.
9. Listen to your employees
If employees have an opinion on how the company's comms messages should be conveyed, listen to what they say. They are the target audience after all and can help turn a good comms strategy into a great one.
10. Get engaged
With social media tools and networks, internal communicators have a golden opportunity to inspire a workforce
and get them fully engaged with the company's value and culture. A key part of this is making sure that leadership is involved and that the social media is used regularly and not forgotten about.
Have your say
Are you using social media internally within your organization? If so, what tools are you using and how are you using them? Share your thoughts with us.
Other recommendations:
Ten definitive social media tips for 2010
How to take your first tentative steps into the world of Web 2.0