Guest post by Scott Spjut

It doesn’t matter if you’re a huge, international corporation or a local small business; in this day and age, each and every business should have a social media policy. This helps protect the company, employees, and customers, and set a standard for behavior both in and out of the office.

When developing a social media policy, there are several things you consider. First of all, you’ll need to do your research. There are plenty of general policies available online that can work as a good starting point, but you need to be sure you tailor it to your own company’s needs. Take the time to adapt what you need to better align with your company’s mission and needs. You’ll also want to put the policy in writing; this isn’t something you just bring up casually and hope people remember.

As you develop your policy, you need to keep in mind what you hope to accomplish not only with the policy but with social media in general. Your policy isn’t just for protection, but also to help you grow your business and your brand. It’s there to benefit employees. It should help you add value to the online marketplace. It should allow you interact with your community and connect with your customers.

But even after you’ve developed and established a working social media policy, you’ll need to update it occasionally. Hand-in-hand with these updates should be ongoing training for employees. Social media evolves and will continue to evolve, so as you react to changes in the industry, you’ll need to inform everyone of the changes and allow them to ask questions.

As you delve into the social media world, you need to understand that everything you put online has the potential to be there forever. Because of this, you should never ever post any private or confidential information through your social media networks. As a matter of good business, you also need to know what to do if and when something goes wrong. Put damage control policies and procedures in place beforehand so you’re not scrambling for a solution.

All in all, you should use social media to add value to the conversation and build your business, but you also need to make sure it’s a controlled effort by putting an effective social media policy into place.

Scott Spjut is a writer and editor who has been featured in various magazines, newspapers and websites, including Newsweek, the Washington Post, CBS News and the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Scott currently works with Professional Marketing International helping people change their lives.