Page 126 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

SOME SMM GUIDELINE RESOURCES AND
EXAMPLES

Here are some of the most helpful online resources for creating SMM guidelines:

• IBM Social Computing Guidelines: www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/
guidelines.html
• HP Blogging Code of Conduct: www.hp.com/hpinfo/blogs/
codeofconduct.html
• Intel Social Media Guidelines: www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/legal/
intel-social-media-guidelines.html

• Coca-Cola Social Media Guidelines: www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/
online-social-media-principles

SMM guidelines can get long and unwieldy. You may not need every element
mentioned in the preceding list. If you’re a small company, these guidelines may
fold into broader employee guidelines and may not need to be a standalone docu-
ment. But you definitely need them in some form. They provide direction to your
employees without hampering their enthusiasm for social influence marketing.
And with the right excitement around SMM, you may find yourself turning every
employee into a marketer who is representing the company in her own SMM
voice, authentically and convincingly. You can’t ask for more than that from your
employees. Invariably, these spontaneous, natural grassroots efforts complement
your more formal brand and SMM voices. They don’t contradict but rather
strengthen each other.

Be sure to invite employees across your company to provide feedback on the
guidelines. It’s no use creating and publishing guidelines in isolation. Your
employees provide you with valuable feedback. By being included in the creation
process, they’re more likely to follow the guidelines.

110 PART 2 Practicing SMM on the Social Web