WWE Has Social Media Guidelines. Do You? See Our Tips for Business Leaders

Posted by Beverly Crandon on 9/23/10 • Categorized as Business,Social Media

As social media and social networks show no end to their growth and adoption rates (my 70 year old mother just joined Facebook two weeks ago), we consistently preach the need for businesses to be aware and welcoming of the social web, and to also educate their employees on what the companies focus is, on social networks.  Through social media communication and education, employees with high profile positions, or those just mentioning the organization or brand, will communicate and represent you publicly, as a unit.  Furthermore, if you haven’t yet created your social media blueprint for employees, you will be amiss to know that you are falling behind the WWE.  Yes,  you read right, the World Wrestling Entertainment group.

We’ve just learned that the WWE has issued its own set of social media guidelines for its wrestling talent, in hopes to protect the organization and its fighters reputation and personal brand.  Now the WWE may be going too far with their rules as they’ve stated something along the lines of “All talent must have their personal social networking account screened by WWE before being approved for use”.  As business owners and leaders, you do not want to institute guidelines that cause a backlog because you have to read all intended public messages – that defeats the purpose of social media.  However, the WWE is reacting to recent posts on Twitter and videos published by Matt Hardy, one of their fighters (if interested – Matt Hardy story here and the video that upset the WWE here).  So, given the WWE’s steps to embrace, kind of, social media, we thought we would help those of you who haven’t created your blueprint, by getting you started with a few tips.

Tips for business leaders, when creating social media rules of engagement for employees

Determine Your Social Edge: your guidelines should promote the messages you would like your employees to convey to the public about your brand, service, product or industry know how.  It is not enough to list the “what you cannot do’s”, but you must also list the “how you can help us engage socially” items.  The latter will better promote and enhance your organization.

Update Employees On Your Social Edge: your driving message, or some of them anyway if product related, should change and staff should be kept current on what messages you are hoping to relay, given a new product or launch.

Transparency: ensure employees know that if mentioning the brand or company that they should also make known their status or relationship with the company.  The last thing you want is for the social sphere to think you’ve staged users to give your brand praise or a leg up.

Trust Your Employees: you hired them for a reason.  Trust that they would exercise good judgement with the release of your guidelines.  You can never have enough social noise on the Web.  The higher the number of employees representing your brand or service, positively on the Web, the better for you in trying to gain social followers, who hopefully will syndicate your messages.

Reporting Is Your Friend: it is not enough to guide employees in what they can say about your brand, you must also analyse what is being said by the public about your brand.  Recognize where social conversations with customers or potential customers and brand advocates may happen and use these findings when updating Your Social Edge.

Consult Legal: before publishing your guidelines, run them by your legal department, just in case, but be strong in educating them, if needed, on the effectiveness of the social web, if used appropriately.  Guide them in understanding the rules of social engagement.