In this article, I’ll introduce you to social media guidelines for all your employees and your social media management team, and for crisis management and specific platforms. I’ll also take a look at important considerations for big and small businesses.

Advantages of Social Media Guidelines

Here are four major benefits:

• Provides a way to implement your social media strategy and improve your social media performance.
• Gives everyone the information they need to work well together.
• Makes it easier to build your social communities online.
• Makes it possible to respond to emergencies before they get out of hand.

With the right strategy, social media guidelines can have a direct impact on your success.

Models to Follow

Create the social media guidelines your business needs.

You can easily find examples of social media policies and guidelines used by big companies. Here are a few lists of social media policy resources:

• Dave Fleet has a list of 57 social media policy examples and many interesting articles on social media policies to read, as well as a free ebook to download.
• Chris Boudreaux has a database with 150 social media policies.
• Laurel Papworth lists 40 different social media staff guidelines.

As you look through these resources you’ll notice how companies have different approaches.

Here’s a look at the different types of social media guidelines:

Social Media Guidelines for Employees

Some companies feel the need to provide their employees with general guidelines on how to use social media for both their personal profiles as well as professional profiles.

These guidelines can simply be reminders of what’s considered confidential information or information that could have legal ramifications if shared on social networks in any format.

You can also read the discussion on Forrester’s decision to have their analysts blog on the company blog and not on personal blogs.

Guidelines for Your Social Media Team

The people interacting and engaging on social media can benefit greatly with guidelines adapted to your business needs.

On one hand, the people interacting on behalf of your company must:

• Be knowledgeable of various legal terms and what they mean in your business environment, such as defamation, endorsements, intellectual property, and any form of wrongful disclosure
• Be aware of global implications of your online communication
• Avoid inappropriate comments about competitors or others online

On the other hand, they must also:

• Remain positive
• Be helpful and add value
• Be transparent

And in addition to this, they are entrusted with cultivating relationships and building community on your social media profiles.

It’s not always easy to balance all of these criteria, especially for people new to social media. And this is where good guidelines can be critical.

If you need this type of social media guide, Todd Defren’s corporate social media policy template is a good place to start.

Guidelines for Crisis Management

You might want to monitor the negative comments about your business because a crisis can grow very fast. So you’ll want to know how to respond to any social media attacks and have your action guidelines ready to respond to a negative situation before it gets out of hand.

Prepare for any possible crisis you encounter on social media.

For example one of the first places to start is to be sure your team has both social media and business expertise. You’ll also need to delegate enough resources to maintain an on-going presence on your social media sites. This will help you to implement the steps you need in crisis management.

Once you understand how to use social media for crisis management, you’ll want to build your online presence and your:

• Social relationships in your business community
• Social media team
• Online monitoring

You’ll also want to establish clear guidelines to for a quick response. These usually include:

• Ultra-transparency
• Dialogue, as well as the right message
• A team able to provide a rapid response
• And knowing when to call in public relations professionals experienced in social media crisis management

Check out what Chris Kenton has to say on social media crisis management.

Editorial Guidelines for Specific Social Media Platforms

You can also create editorial guidelines on how to implement your social media strategy on specific platforms such as Facebook. These editorial guidelines can be very useful when you have several people contributing in one place.

Creating specific editorial guidelines can help you build stronger communities on each platform. For example, moderation might need to be handled differently. On your business blog you might opt for pre-moderation of all comments, but this is not something you’ll be able to do on all social media platforms, where you’ll have to adjust your guidelines.

An active Facebook page can have a lot of social interaction. And you may need to monitor your Facebook page more than on other social media platforms and need a small team to rotate at different times of the day. You’ll also want to incorporate more fun activities regularly on your Facebook page to encourage engagement.

Social Media Guidelines for Big Companies

While big companies almost always have existing communication policies and these guidelines also apply to social media communication, they also need to make sure they address the specific dos and don’ts.

Big companies might require both internal social media policies and external social media policies.

The question of managing social media celebrities may also be integrated into their social media guidelines.

Social Media Guidelines Adapted to Small Companies

Smaller companies may not need all of these social media policies and guidelines. For example, with fewer staff and less time available, smaller companies may decide it’s quicker to “block” people who leave inappropriate comments.

They might only need one well-crafted set of guidelines, some good judgment and an understanding of social media and their company’s online strategies.

And even if smaller companies think they don’t need social media guidelines like the bigger companies, they can benefit tremendously from one, because it will:

• Help them to stay focused on their social media strategy
• Allow them to benchmark their progress and better evaluate what to do next
• Allow them to manage the time they invest in social media better

Find the Right Social Media Guidelines for Your Business

Here are three things you can do to help you create social media guidelines for your business:

#1: Check out the social media policies and guidelines of companies similar to yours in the lists mentioned above.

#2: Listen to our expert interviews, in which many of these social media pros share the simple guidelines that work well for them.

#3: Read through the social media case studies here on Social Media Examiner to see how other companies use social media successfully.

You’ll learn more as you engage on social media and implement your first social media guidelines. So remember to seek feedback and be ready to tweak your guidelines from time to time to fit in with how your business communicates on your social networks. The social platforms change and people also change in how they communicate on them.

Want to learn about the editorial guidelines used on Social Media Examiner’s Facebook page, which helped to build a thriving community of over 15,000 fans in only a few short months?

Sign up for the Facebook Success Summit 2010 where Amy Porterfield and I share Social Media Examiner’s Editorial Guidelines for Facebook.

Now it’s your turn.

What social media policies or guidelines does your company have in place? How have they helped your business? Let us know your comments in the box below.

Photo credits : Moi Cody & Kriss Szkurlatowski

As Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford Motor Company, says, “U.S. brands looking to leverage social networks internationally know that while their messages need to stay consistent regardless of the region, the language, cultural reference points, platform and tactics, all need to be tailored for each market.”

He continues, “Whether it is customer service, IT, HR or product development, there are a number of uses for social media. And when you add to that all of our constituents—customers, employees, shareholders, dealers, retirees—it becomes a very complex assignment.”

Here’s a look at a few of the difficulties and how you can overcome them…

The Information Available

In the past, statistics on social media were difficult to come by and they were not always relevant.  But there are more Internet statistics available today even for social media.  McCann’s Wave 4 Power to the People report  is one resource available to gain insights into how to use social media internationally.

The trouble  with an international social media strategy, as Erik Qualman of Search Engine Watch points out, one size does not fit all. Having more relevant statistics does not get you very far.  You still need to learn how to adapt what you do on social media to effectively connect with people in other countries. And before you can do this, you need to know a bit more about what social media is like over there.

Social Media in Different Regions of the World

A good place to start is to look for general insights into the social media environment in the places you would like to reach.

The Nielsen report Global Faces and Networked Places clearly explains why localization has won the day in many countries and says, “Succeeding in China takes more than producing a translated version; it requires investment in a local infrastructure and a mentality of running a Chinese social network that understands the domestic nuances of social network behaviour rather than simply rolling out a generic social network in Chinese.”

Here are more insights from two social media players well-known in their own countries:

Have a look at this interview of Laurel Papworth in which she gives an analysis on what’s happening in social media in Australia and Southeast Asia.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlhEzAdyCIs

Fred Cavazza says, “The main differences in France‘s social media are based on the local offering and local players: Dailymotion, Skyblog, Viadeo, Dofus, BlogSpirit, CanalBlog, OverBlog… and there are 3 distinct groups in France around culinary, political and IT gadget blogs.”

Fred Cavazza raises a good point. Let’s have a look at the main challenges presented by local offerings and local players.  These are areas where you will need to adapt to fit in with what works in the local social media environment.

Cultural Differences in How People Respond to Social Media

Cultural differences always impact how people use social media. Here are some insights from a few culturally minded social media players.

Engagement—Jack Yan says, “There seems to be a gap between Americans and New Zealanders on Twitter usage, for instance. Kiwis, for the most part, seem to engage a bit more and there are relatively fewer accounts, proportionally, made up of automated tweets. There seems to be more of a demand on American tweeters, for instance, to provide a lot of content, and I suspect that this drives the automation. This arguably comes back to the different cultures: one historically more collaborative, the other historically more individualistic.”

Hesitation—France shares a trait with many countries: hesitation and observation before engaging in new social media. Thierry de Baillon says, “Where Anglo Saxons are prone to quickly dive into new platforms and get new habits, Frenchies stick with old ones, watching others acting while taking their time.”

Networking—Lucy Chatburn sees more networking activity on both LinkedIn and Facebook in Turkey than in the UK. “This could be because networking doesn’t come naturally to many British people. And a LinkedIn profile is definitely not seen as an essential career tool in the UK.”

Shyness—Mixi, a leading social network in Japan, added a special feature to make it easier for people to make friends.

Of course, there are many more ways cultural differences impact social media. Before you can find the right way for your business to connect with people on social media platforms in different countries, you do need to:

• Develop cultural awareness
• Do your research
• Adapt your communication and social approach

Evolution in Local Players

Other challenges in international social media are related to changes in popularity of social media platforms.  A snapshot of the social media environment in any country may not remain current for long.  Social media environments change.

Facebook’s growth has had an impact on many countries outside of North America. Orkut’s popularity in Brazil and India is changing.

This is why it is difficult for businesses to know how to:

• Anticipate where to spend time
• Identify the most relevant social media platforms for their business

Good monitoring practices and a local presence are keys to success.

Can Social Media Help Your International Business?

There are many reasons why this is a tough question to answer.  As we have seen above, statistics do not always reflect how people use social media. There are also:

• Different speeds of adopting social media
• Differences in how locals use social media
• Differences in how businesses can use social media in different countries

On the one hand, local statistics can be misleading.  Another culturally minded social media player, Martin Lindeskog points out that “The broadband/high-speed Internet connection is very common here in Sweden.” However, he also notes that “you can’t find many examples of companies that have embraced a new type of media strategy in full scale yet. There is a lot of talk about Twitter, but you don’t see many companies microblogging.”

On the other hand, although statistics only tell part of the story, a detailed view of the local social media environment can give you valuable insights.  According to Fred Cavazza, the social media market in France was evangelized long ago by local players, and this made the road to success easy to maneuver for Facebook in France.

A Source of Inspiration

In addition to connecting with business networking partners abroad, there is another good reason to keep an ear open for what is happening in international social media: there is richness in diversity.  And this can help you stay in tune with social media as it evolves for everyone.

Monitoring how businesses in other countries use social media helps you to:

• Get ideas for new things to try in your own country
• Spot new trends in other areas of the world which might, in time, affect your own industry

As different people around the world adapt social media to their own cultural tastes and the driving forces in their local markets, we are sure to see:

• More innovation
• Different uses for social media in business
• Opportunities to adapt the strategies and tools we are familiar with to new international markets

Observing these changes and understanding why they fail or succeed increase our understanding of what social media is all about.  Although North American businesses are using social media more than businesses elsewhere, there are many examples of innovation and inspiration to be found outside of North America.  This alone is why following international social media is useful to many businesses.

Now, over to you…

• What have you learned by observing social media in other countries?
• What is the most interesting difference in international social media to you?
• What anecdotes can you share about social media in different countries?

Please share your comments with us below.