Like many organizations, the Women’s Enterprise Centre of Manitoba has waded into the social media pool. We have a Facebook page, and have been blogging for some time – much more regularly over the past six months than when we first started. The Centre has a LinkedIn page as do many of the staff. We’ve considered Twitter, but aren’t quite there.

 

We encourage everyone on staff to contribute to the blog. As the blog editor, I get pieces that are post-ready and those that are great ideas jotted down on paper but need a little more fleshing out. I’m very happy to say that everyone has contributed content. With 11 of us on staff, there are lots of ideas, experiences and expertise that can be shared. Everyone here is also very professional so there has never been any concern of inappropriate posts. We’ve been lucky.

 

Social media tools facilitate conversation often by the sharing of opinions. Just as there are human resource policies and board governance policies that outline appropriate conduct and provide structure, there should be a policy to guide your staff in the appropriate use of social media. For the past few months I have been looking for information on social media policies that fits with the Centre’s goals, communications strategy and culture.

 

On February 8, Matthew Shepherd, Online Marketing Director at Canada’s Web Shop delivered the session “Social Media and My Business – Making them Work Together” at the Centre. He covered lots of ground in just an hour and tucked into his presentation was a reference to Dave Fleet – 57 Social Media Policy Examples. I had hit the jackpot.

 

Fleet’s list (which now has 61 references) includes an international array of businesses, organizations and government entities. While none of the policies may be an exact fit for your business, there is information that can be gleaned from all of them and developed into a policy that is relevant for you and your employees.

 

So now that you have people sharing on line, how do you respond (or not) to their comments? Stay tuned for next week’s blog.

 

Posted by Alison Kirkland at 4:19 PM 0 Comments

Tags women entrepreneurs  women-owned businesses  Women’s Enterprise Centre  social media policy  blog