Stop the Next PR Disaster: Protect Your Brand with a Clear Social Media Policy

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Our hook this week is the fact.

That Chrissy is sitting across the table from me with this completely frightened look on her face.

We're going to talk about personal social media, and we're going to talk about it from two angles, both of your employees and of your own.

Yes.

That deep sigh you're hearing.

Chrissy. Go ahead, everyone, pop your Xanax.

We'll be right back. She's the CEO.

He's the marketing and operations guy.

If it's broken, you need the business fix. Happy 25th episode. The fact that we have made it to 25 episodes.

Is that our silver episode? I think it is.

Sure.

Okay.

Sure. What I want to go back to is when we.

When.

When we started this journey, I was like, hey, would you want to do like a business podcast together? And you answered that, like, yes. And I was like, oh, that was almost a scary yes.

I was so excited.

You were.

And I. I mean, then we recorded.

Like two episodes and we launched one. And then we. Wait. Like, the first episode did fairly well.

Yeah.

And then I was like, do we do this weekly? Because I know the work that goes into it. You knew the work that went into it. And you're like, if you're. I remember. You're like, if you think you can handle it from a production standpoint. Yes. And I was like, I don't know.

But let's do this.

Let's see how it goes.

Right Here we are 25 episodes later, meaning it's. We're about six months in.

Yeah.

Which is weird.

It is. It feels like it's been really, really short. And then it also feels like it's been, like, forever. Well, there's getting that cadence.

Yeah. And there's been a couple of times where we've spent, like, three hours in the studio together.

Yes.

And there it's. The room is padded.

Not just because of sound. That wall right back there, I have fully expected to find a Chrissy shaped hole. And you haven't done that.

No, I haven't. Run yet?

No, it's all good.

That is why we'll plug the resiliency thing.

Yes.

You have proven 25 episodes in. You have shown how resilient you can be as you have made 25 episodes.

Congratulations.

Thank you. Proof of concept. Resilient operating system. See, in case anybody wonders, it does work. Doing uncomfortable things.

Speaking of doing uncomfortable things, that seems like a great segue into this week's topic.

Okay.

You're like, damn it.

Yes.

He found a way to segue it. I was hoping we were just gonna.

Banter for 40 minutes. That's what I was hoping.

40 minutes of banter and then we'll.

Pick a different episode.

Right, right, right.

Hey, goodbye, everyone. Right, right. Social media. Everyone's an expert.

Yeah.

Everyone's a publisher.

Yes.

The lines because of social media have been blurred between personal and professional.

Yes.

There'S posts that have caused a stir, but what does that mean for, like, a business owner if they're the ones that post it? What happens when your employee posts it? A social media post from an employee that seems a little wonky offends another.

Employee, offends a customer.

Oh, yes, yes, yes. Today is the episode where Chrissy and.

I walk barefoot on Legos. Yeah.

Feel like I'm doing it a lot right now.

Right, right, right.

Clear policies, obviously, are a big thing.

My policy is don't just. If you're on social media, we're not hiring.

No. From your perspective.

Yeah.

What are some key policies, procedures? What are some things as a business.

Yes.

That you need to have in place that puts the proverbial, like, steel shield over your ass.

Yes. So I would say first is we start with the right foundation. So whether you like it or not, as a business owner with employees, in the climate that we are in, you have to have a clear, written social media policy. And you cannot hold people accountable to something they were never clearly told. You have to tell them. So every business, big or small, social media policy that lives in the employee handbook, it's not buried, it's not vague, and it is absolutely clear. And that policy should cover what is expected during work hours, guidelines for public facing, content that could reflect on the business, confidentiality, expectations as an employee, and then what crosses the line? Bullying, client info, speech that may or may not be inflammatory. And so you also need to have it make sure. This is the most important part of a social media policy, Josh. It has to be reviewed and acknowledged as any signature during onboarding that policy.

Specifically.

That policy. Specifically. I mean, it can be in your handbook But I prefer. My recommendation is this one specifically. I want you to review it and I want you to look at it and I need your signature because you don't want to have these conversations in the dark later on.

Especially sweaty 10 minute conversation.

This is a bad.

Because you're going to have sweaty 10 minute conversations regardless. It would be much better if you have these conversations ahead of time. Like a great example too is if you are using LinkedIn as a business, you have salespeople that are using LinkedIn. There are some organizations and ours is one of them where we have the expectation of we, we are going to use the things that you are doing in this organization and you are going to post them on LinkedIn. Because LinkedIn is something that we pay for some of our employees to have to be able to use as a sales tool. So if you're not, you've got to be able to do it. And that was like first day, new salesperson started. We're like, here's a social media policy, review it. We're going to talk about it, we're going to make sure that you understand it. He's like, oh, no problem.

Here's a question for you with that first day.

Yes.

Why not interview day?

Why not interview day?

Is there a point, Is there a reason to bring that up in an interview or no, I mean, you could.

Talk about it, say, you know, we do have a clear social media policy.

Okay.

You don't have to, this is one of the, like, you've signed your offer letter because you don't give them, you usually don't give them the handbook until you're an employee. So.

Right.

Yeah, it's just how much do you want to bombard people? Do you want to terrify them so they run screaming? But most of the time a social media policy, it's innocuous. It's just we need to make sure that, you know.

Sure, sure.

So yeah.

It'S more than just protecting you as an owner though, correct?

Yes. Policies protect everyone. They don't just protect the company. So yeah.

It'S not just for you. No, it's for everyone.

No, it's not about micromanaging people. I mean they're about giving people the clarity they need to succeed. So what, you know what well communicated policy removes that gray area that means less stress for leadership and for employees. So you know what can and can't I post? So I mean, if you are part of a, you work for an organization that has a religious bend to it, there may be certain things that you are and are not allowed to say in your personal social media. It depends on like what your employment contract reads, different types of things. I mean, a great example is, you know, there are different media personalities that have certain rules around what they can do. They get paid millions of dollars. So as a result of those millions of dollars, there are some things that they can and can't say. I think oftentimes we get confused between free speech and speech free of consequence.

Yeah, that's. I mean, when we were talking about doing this episode, you, you even texted that because. And I, I feel like that is a huge thing. Just because we have. And I mean, if you read the actual Constitution.

Yes.

Well, Bill of Rights is what that is. Is that is the, I mean, that deals with the press, that deals with what you can say about the government. As far as the government is concerned.

Yes.

Not as far as your boss is concerned.

Correct.

Or as far as, I don't know, the person that sits at the desk next to you is concerned.

Yes. Which is why when you have a good policy, it ensures that when conversations have to happen, usually it's because somebody said something on social media that offended somebody else. They're rooted in those expectations. They're not rooted in personal judgment as to whether we like what somebody said or didn't say.

Yeah, no, I like that. So inevitably, especially as companies grow.

Yes. When you have more than one person.

Correct. The smile on your face right now, for those of you that are just listening, Chrissy has this smile on her.

Face of I'm about to lose it.

I'm doing everything that I can to keep it together and not explode. Which to me I love because it's, it's, it's, it's wonderful to see you under pressure for one time. How do you tiptoe around these things with the.

I mean, this is a tough issue and it's why we're addressing it today.

Yeah.

What happens?

Not if, but when someone decides to.

Go off the handle at 3 o' clock in the morning on a rant on. On X that happen to be AI assisted.

Okay.

The deep breath says it all.

So the first thing as the leader is you. As frustrated or as emotional as it may be for you in that moment, you cannot react. Okay. You gotta pause and review the facts. So you screenshot the post or the content. You do not rely on secondhand reports. Someone may give you a secondhand report. That's fine, show me. Or where can it be? And if it's not there when you go, look, I mean, Sometimes people post things at 2am that they didn't mean to post and then they delete them. So you got to deal with that too. But you know, review your company policy then in that moment, are you holding them accountable to something that is clearly outlined? If somebody doesn't agree with your political affiliation and it's not outlined in your social media policy, which it really shouldn't be, you don't have any context. Now if they're writing something that's inflammatory about your company or they're writing something that could be inflammatory and cause an issue with your customers and you know that that is a problem, that's different. So you gotta pause and review the facts. Next is plan the conversation. I say this again, plan the conversation.

All right, we go back to difficult conversations.

We have a whole episode on this.

Yes. So you think about what that outcome you want is. Is it a learning moment or is it disciplinary one or is it both? So you've got to know, what is it that I really want to convey to this team member? And then you lead with context and care. So conversation framework. All right, are we listening? This is what I would say. I've said it in the past.

I was about to say, I feel like I should be taking notes here.

Yeah. So this is, you know, I want to have a quick conversation with you about something I came across online. Right. I saw a post that could be interpreted as misaligned with how we show up as a team. And I'd like to hear more about your intention behind it. And I want to talk to you about how this might be perceived by others, especially since it's connected to your public profile. I mean, so that's, it's a really clean way to put it. Don't say, hey, I saw you post this on X and what is wrong with you? Don't do that. This is a help me understand moment. Hey, I saw this. Help me understand what you were thinking in this process. Because I think it could be misconstrued as being misaligned with our values and could come off offensive potentially to either other individuals that work in the organization or some of our customers. And then that's a dialogue. You're not saying you did something wrong. Do not point, do not glare, do not hold up your phone and show them what they did wrong. Have a conversation. And if you know that your views are very are opposite of the person that you're going to have this conversation with and you can't have a face to face conversation, walk and talk. Because if you Walk and talk. It is easier for you to disagree in moments on things that may not necessarily have to do with your policy, but you can at least have a dialogue. So that's. That's one thing that I think is really important is dialogue. I kind of got a little bit off track now. Things that you avoid, accusatory tone, jumping to conclusions, making it personal, super easy. Yeah, yeah.

Those are the. Those are the three mistakes that I.

Yes.

I see so many people turn to emotions with this. And that's what makes social media, social media is they go emotional.

They do.

You need to pump the brakes.

Pump the brakes. Bring it back. You want to focus on the behavior, not the identity. Because often when we're talking about something that could be offensive, that is either, I mean, political, religious speech, some of those things. Do not talk about the behavior. Talk about the how, talk about the what, don't talk about. Sometimes the thing you want to focus on impact, not just intent. Because sometimes it's, hey, I know that your intent may have been to be funny. That didn't land funny. That landed really offensive.

Sure.

And so it's. So focus on the impact and then the values of your organization. Hey, we've got four core values at AUI and Clarity. I don't know that what you said aligns with our values, but I could be wrong. So let's talk about it.

Give them that opportunity.

Yes. Yeah. And I've been in situations where people said, oh, my gosh, I am so sorry, I'm going to delete it right now. And is there anybody I need to apologize to? And then I've also been in rooms where like, yep, I said it. And what are you going to do about it? It's like.

Let's be honest, you did.

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So if you're ready to stop using duct tape and hope as your HR.

Strategy and finally get some peace of mind, head over to clarityhr.com that's clarityhr.com simple, clear, and here to help.

I'll give you a few seconds to go to the website while we get.

Ready to get back to the show.

Okay.

We.

We now just expanded this to a.

15 minute sweaty conversation.

Exactly. And you don't know what you're going. You don't know how to prepare for the conversation and that, like, what could happen if it goes horribly wrong. But just anticipate that. You know what? Often I would say most times, people don't realize what happened. They don't realize what they said or, you know, they were upset in that moment or they were. They thought it was going to be in a different direction than they. Yeah.

If you react, if you react with emotion to something that someone said from an emotional place, that just jacks up the emotional level. It does every single time. And it's like, bring this back.

Let's.

Yeah, no, totally makes sense. I love, and I have repeated this numerous times now, vision values are really just bad wall art unless you live.

Them and breathe them. I love the wall art. To me, that is the best statement I've, I've used that now.

I've given you credit, so don't worry.

Thank you.

Why does, like, the vision in that matter?

Well, I mean, when you're dealing with a difficult conversation or you're dealing with a conversation around values of the person and how they're expressing themselves online, it also can tie back to the vision and the values that you have for your organization. So, I mean, your team understands your vision and values. It becomes much easier to talk through and about behavior through that lens. And so you're not just correcting behavior, you're realigning it with your culture. And so I think that's where things are really important. I mean, these conversations are easier when you've already been reinforcing what your brand stands for and what leadership looks like and how employees represent your mission on or off the clock.

I love that. And I, I'll probably talk a little bit to that on and off the clock thing because there's, there's, there's two pieces to that that I, that I feel like there's, there's ways to make sure that you have that. So, yeah, like, so wrap this up into, like, a ball here.

Okay.

I mean, it's really easy.

We talk about it in other podcasts. Brene Brown says, to be clear is to be kind.

Sure.

Right. So clarity is kindness. So you can protect your culture and preserve relationships at the same time, but only if you lead with clarity and not fear. So you've got to walk into these conversations with, I am going to understand. We're going to realign on our values. We're going to have a conversation. We may not agree on everything, but there are certain things that we can agree on or you can't work hearing anymore. One is our mission, vision and values. So be proactive, not reactive. Don't avoid those conversations because delay makes it harder, especially with social media. You need to address it calmly, but as quickly as you can, address it calmly and document that conversation. And it's not because you don't trust the person, but because it's part of running a responsible business. So when people are like, you had this issue, I saw this. And you're like, and we handled it as an organization and it's not, it's not something that you necessarily need to show everybody your documentation unless you're in litigation. But hopefully you're not there. Hopefully you're not there. I would hope not. But you can say, you know, we address this and we're sorry that this is something that maybe offended you or this was something that you thought, but this was misconstrued. And that doesn't align with our values. And we appreciate the opportunity to continue to serve you.

I love all that. I mean, the documentation piece is one where I think a lot of people fall short, where they're like, hey, we talked about it. Yeah, no, put. Put something down about, well, and when.

You have it signed, when you already know what the policy is ahead of time, it makes it very easy to have those conversations. This is, this is ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. So let's just, let's be proactive in these things.

Or the pounding headache that you're going.

To have so many things, or the phone calls or the nasty emails or the rant in video retaliation. Like, it's just you, I've been there. You don't want to deal with it. It's not fun. And there are some.

Chrissy's having a PTSD moment.

I am, I am, I'm having. I mean, like, we had it. We had an issue at one point in time where an employee quit and they went, they, they went in and on YouTube were ranting. And so I am in a meeting and I've got someone knocking on my door. And I'm like, I'm in a meeting and then my phone just starts going off, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. So and so is on YouTube. I'm like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this right now, but it was. You have to handle it. So you got to deal with, you know, this is the, this is the confines of, yes, you have left employment, but that doesn't allow you to say the things that you want to say, and because you're upset with someone because they said something that offended you and you decided to quit. You're now on YouTube. So it's like you have to get the lawyers involved. You have to do the cease and desist. And you have. And then I get the email, like, you have silenced me. And I'm like, I have. Because it wasn't something you were supposed to do in the first place.

You're welcome.

Yeah, you're welcome. We can talk more offline about that.

I think after we're done with this episode, we're both gonna just take a nap.

Anybody wants to message me about how do you deal with some of these things? I'm happy to talk offline. I'm not talking in this podcast about it. That's a call clarity, right?

That is 100% call clarity.

So I wanna get out of my uncle comfortable. And let's talk about operations, please.

Sure.

Okay.

Sure, sure.

So this isn't just a people problem. Right. From an operations standpoint, it's a brand problem. So how can business owners approach this from really a strategic point of view? This is the part that gives me hives when I think about it. When someone goes out on social media. Like how. When do you consider the rules might be different for a salesperson versus an accountant? For salesperson versus customer service? We just say sales association. This sales is different. So I want to hear.

I. What's so interesting about it is you have to look at all of this from a brand perspective. And there's some brands that are okay. Saying offensive things.

Yeah.

There's a company that I work very closely with. They have very. I mean, big ties to like, one affiliation. Yeah. And they are very proud of that. And okay. They. They've made that conscious decision to go that direction.

Yes.

And for them, if the CEOs there and everyone's there, great, that's fine. If they want to make that part of their brand and part of who they are, that's fine. To me, I like if you go look at, like my social media, I mean, you have. It's.

I have. It's all motorcycles. It's great.

It's either motorcycles or it's stuff from here. That's it.

That's it. Occasionally it's something dumb.

Weightlifting. But tip. Typically it's motorcycles and stuff from here. Do I have opinions on a lot of stuff?

Same.

I have. We both have a lot of strong opinions. I don't necessarily feel the need to tell them to everyone.

No.

I feel the need to tell them to people that I think are concerned, people that care. Social media doesn't typically care. So having people like in your organization that realize that is one piece to it from. If, if a CEO, CFO or someone says something that's, let's say, outside of your guidelines, that's got to be an instant act. And that is now that is something that has to move into pr.

Yeah.

You need all, all the policies and everything that you talked about are the same. You have to have all that. If you don't, you're. You're setting yourself up. Four issues.

Yes.

From the, like I said, from the marketing, from the PR aspect of it, it's CEO, cfo, if they say something just incredibly outlandish, whatever. I, I mean you have to address that from a PR standpoint. But it also has to fit the handbook.

Yes.

If the CEO goes out, let's say you have something about hate speech and the CEO says kill all rabbits. You kind of got to be like, well, okay, bye, bye. You have to show that you mean it.

Yeah.

It's unfortunate because sometimes like you said, there's that 3 o' clock in the morning text. I love the thing that you said earlier about there's people in the news. There's. When you are at any sort of management level, any sort of leadership level, you are held to a higher standard. You are, that's part of your pay.

Yes.

Is being held to a higher standard just in life in general. So if it's a back of house employee that says something that may be construed as mildly offensive, then I would address it internally. But realize that you have to look at the broader effect that's going to have on the company. If this is someone that's. If you have a factory that's got 10,000 workers and someone says, hey, I don't like this political affiliation, you kind of get to be like, okay, whatever, address it with them as whatever fits in the handbook. Address it with them. But then just realize, move on with your life.

Yeah.

The difference between the back of house employee and the executive or anyone in management. Because anyone in management, anyone below them.

Yes.

If they see it differently, could be offended by that. So once again, to me, the piece that you said about the social media thing, like as a separate piece in the handbook, like you have to sign this specific page in the handbook. To me, when someone is promoted into a leadership position, this is something that you, once again, you go over it again. You just have to go over and you have to tell them, look, you are in a position now where other people are looking to you. You have to, we want to make sure that you are doing things appropriately.

Yes. Well, I would say social media is not the problem, it's the symptom. The real problem is how do we teach people how to have dialogue? Which is why when you're promoting people, they're moving up, they're learning about. Okay, now I still have to remember the social media policy. You're also giving them the soft skills training around what it means to actually have constructive dialogue. That was something that we did within our organization, especially in 2020 and 2021 as political climate got a little bit dicey. Was instead of putting our people through these are the things that you will and will not do. We took them through tolerance training and how to have constructive dialogue and what it truly means to be tolerant. Because tolerant does not necessarily mean you're going to fit in with all of the subscription of what the political or the framework of what the day is, the flavor of the day. It means that we are going to be tolerant no matter what. And so I think that's another aspect as you're talking about some of the things you can do in operations. It's really training your people to be tolerant and be able to have constructive dialogue. Because otherwise you get into the NUHS and then it just doesn't go anywhere.

The other thing that is a piece that I look with this is this really comes back to culture in so many ways. So. And one of the ways that I look at this is as you are hiring, I mean, if you've had an employee for 30 years, great, they've been there for 30 years. They are part of the culture. Awesome.

Yeah.

But if you are looking at a new employee and you happen to look at their social media and it is nothing but inflammatory statements one direction or the other, you have to realize, does this fit with my culture? It's once again, it's these clues that tell you if a person is going to be a good fit for your organization.

Yes.

If it's someone that has a far, far different view than you do on almost every single topic, you. They might be a fit, but realize they also might be a risk.

Yeah.

And those are the things that I think so many people, they, when, when they're hiring, they overlook that culture piece about it. They're like, oh, this is whatever.

No.

And yeah, you have, you absolutely have to dive into that and dive deep into it as you can. If you see someone like, if, like me personally, if I see that there's someone that's posting political stuff. Doesn't matter which, which end of the spectrum. If I see them constantly posting political stuff, I'm like, I don't know if this is someone that I want working for me. And part of the reason for that, they can. Once again, free speech is not necessarily free of consequences. But I want people that are going to talk about things that they can work on. Talk about things. If they talk about local government, if they talk about, like, things that they're involved when on social media, then I'm like, hey, this is a doer.

Yeah.

This isn't someone that's just going to scream about stuff. This is someone that's a doer. I want those people.

Yes.

Give me, give me, give me all of those people. So it's, it's once again, be intentional about this. There's people out there that still don't have Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever, and that's fine. But look, if you're hiring someone, more than likely they've got a social media.

Channel, they do go take a look. And if you're going to be someone who you like being inflammatory online and you're looking for a job, lock your social media down. Because if you don't have it locked down, everybody's looking at it. Every. If you, if we are getting ready to make an offer to a significant employee or for a client and they have a significant. I mean, I mean, budget is budget, but someone's leading an organization, you better believe we're scrubbing your social media to see who you are, what you are, what you've done, how you handle dialogue. It's important.

The, the thing that I always like about this is, what's so interesting is how many of my clients come up as suggested Facebook friends. Because once I enter a client's phone number into my phone, Facebook is like, ooh, give me those contacts. And it look if someone's there, they may look. Yeah, you're one click away. They're like, oh, hey, I was thinking about buying something from Josh or Chrissy. Click. What are they going to find?

Exactly. And that's where. If you, if you have a space where I'm congruent. So if you're my Facebook friend or you're my LinkedIn friend, you're getting the same content most of the time.

Same.

Occasionally you're going to get a picture of my family more so on Facebook just because it's easier to post, but you're going to see the same things. I am not going to say a lot of things that we be considered inflammatory because I said, with what we do in our business, we have to sit in the middle. With some of the things that I do in nonprofit and government work, I have to sit in the middle. Doesn't mean I don't have opinions. But you are not going to see them on social media. We have a conversation together, not necessarily off the record, but not on a recorded line, then you're probably going to hear a little bit more. I mean, a great example is, I like it better when people don't always know where you stand on social media. They know what your market is, they know what your brand is, they know what you truly care about and are passionate about, but they don't know where you go to church, who you voted for, who you align with.

Great segue.

It's totally fine.

Great segue. Because my next thing is, is how many times have you sat across the table from someone and you say something and they like, no, there has been many times where I have been talking with people and they say a political or religious or some other view that is 180 degrees from what I believe. And they say it to me like, I totally agree with them.

Yep.

And when you do that, like, it's everything that I can do, do you correct them?

Because I don't.

I was about to say, I typically do not. Because in most cases I'm like, okay, I look uncomfortable enough that they'll probably get the idea. In many. In other cases, I'll just be like, oh, okay, and hope that it passes. Because once again, I'm there to get something done. I'm there to. I want to get to know people. And it's fine if some views leak out. It's fine if you want to discuss those things. But don't assume that everyone has these opinions. Brands are the same way.

Yes.

Companies. I mean, if you're doing your marketing right, you are carefully, like, cultivating your brand image and where it sits.

Yes.

I mean, it's a big thing. A single employee's personal post can really clash with that. And then at that point, you're. You're looking at, like, and. And this doesn't matter. CEO, cfo, whoever. If you clash really hard with that, like, for us, success is a shared thing.

Yes.

Is our. I mean, that's our core value. If my social media manager, if my editor. Hi, Nika, by the way, is if. If Nika would go out and say something like, I hate all these people. You realize that suddenly all of that stuff that we have done. First off, Nick is never going to say that.

No, she's not.

She deals with us all the time.

She's never going to say.

But you realize that if one person says that, that really, I mean, that can tear down that entire brand. The way that set up brands spend a lot of time. It's a reason why we talk about. In podcasting, we are building know, like and trust.

Yes.

Trust is the hardest piece to earn. And suddenly if you say something that goes against your company's core values, against your company's vision, you have destroyed countless hours of marketing branding. And these should be things that once again are natural, but they still take effort.

Well, and for those of you that don't think hours are important, then think of it in dollars and how much you spent and how much time. The time value of money.

For one statement, everyone talks about the amount of money they spend on marketing and just think of that. Just, I mean, walk.

Just lit it on fire.

I was just about to say walk outside, soak it in diesel fuel and light it on fire. The flip side of that, since we're both about ready to, like, I mean, try and take Xanax ourselves into next week. There's good pieces to this.

There are, there are. Social media can be great.

The look of relief on your face. As I said, that.

Can be good.

Let's talk about the good things that happen here.

You.

You already mentioned LinkedIn.

Yeah.

If you've got people, especially salespeople, I mean, just people that are coming in contact with your clients, their LinkedIn can be huge.

It can be.

I mean, and like, to me, the. This is a tool that you not only need to encourage them on it, you need to help them on it.

Oh, absolutely. Alignment and cohesion in your LinkedIn branding is so important. And that's. And I, I like my people. I would say sometimes I love my people. I don't always love how they write, but we have people that can help them do the writing to help them sound even more professional and better at what they're doing. And our goal is like, we can make you shine, similar to what you're doing.

Yep.

And all the work that you do, we're going to make you shine.

It truly is. It's, it's. And what I hate is when I see companies, they tell their employees, repost this.

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Back to the show. Or you must post every day and you have to post on a topic. But they don't know how to write a LinkedIn post. They don't know how to engage on LinkedIn. They're like little LinkedIn hostages. And you can see them in your feed. Come on, you, you scroll through and you're like, oh, they had to make that post. Oh yeah, I'm going to like it, right? Only because I got to have engagement. I'm sure there's a metric tied to it. I feel bad.

Those are usually the ones that I put the support for because it is the hostage situation. So I support them.

Yeah.

No, to me it's one of those things where give people things to work with. Give the other piece to that is, is if you don't give them things to work with. It could very well be off brand. It could very well be off topic if you have, like you said, it's got to be a cohesive effort to push. Everyone needs to be pushing in the same direction.

Yeah.

If you aren't, you've got three people going this way, you've got four people headed south and you've got three people headed, headed up the stairs. Where the hell's everyone going?

Exactly.

Yeah, it's really is one of those things that you need that cohesive push on your employees. Don't call them micro influencers, but they can act that way. Yeah. If you call anyone a micro influencer, they tend to get offended.

No, I can understand that. I can truly understand that.

The other thing is too is employees are going to pick up on some of those real time conversations that you may not. Yeah, my, my LinkedIn feed is not nearly the number of editor like video editors and things that are happening as it used to be. It is more about the people that I'm talking with. So in order for me to keep up with what's going on in the industry, I need to rely on someone like Nika or someone like Megan to be like, look, here's what we have going on. Here's what we need to do. The other thing about that is too, is, as you said, the YouTube video, your nightmare. That was that.

So much fun.

You knew I had to bring it back to something.

I had to bring her back up.

Yeah, yeah. An employee's network is probably going to catch it before you will.

Yeah.

Someone called you before your phone went off. Someone else told you he did. If you encourage employees to do this the right way, they want to see it succeed because a lot of them know it can make their job easier and better. The thing that I've got to say, social media is a tool.

Yes.

You need to use it instead of letting it use you.

Yeah. That's good.

That is.

Yeah.

And if you aren't intentional about using it, it's going to use you. One last thing that I wanted to cover is there's. There's risk to it from a security standpoint. We've all heard of the Nigerian prince that is going to message your accountant.

Yes.

Just send me $500 and your account numbers and I will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. People still fall forms. People still do them. Be aware of that. People, when they connect you with the company, they will look at that network and they will look at how they can use that network for their advantage.

Yeah.

Not yours.

Really happy we're reaching the end of this because I didn't know how it was gonna go.

I feel like the facts of life, we've taken the good, we've taken the bad, we have taken them both. And there we have the facts of life.

The.

The couple of things. Like as the.

There's a difference between a private opinion and a post that misrepresents the company.

Yep.

You need to offer some clarity to that.

Yes.

The. The online ethics policy is one that, by golly, we all need to do.

Yeah.

What. Like when you're creating that. How to create. How do you. How do you create a clear policy that isn't 400 pages?

Well, it's really simple. You talk about what's expected during work hours, you know, guidelines for public facing content that could reflect on the business.

Sure.

So if you're. So for some organizations, it is, you know, we are a nonprofit that works with X, Y and Z. You cannot make any post publicly on your personal Facebook or Instagram, whatever that has to do with religion or politics. So I mean you've got to be very, very clear in that. The other part is confidentiality expectations. So if you're going to talk about your organization or you're going to talk about things that could be, could don't do it. So. And that comes, that's standard in any other policy too, usually your non solicitation, your non disclosure, just in general. But it doesn't have to be fancy.

Okay.

It can be very succinct and it could say if you want to have opinions, you need to lock down your social media. Makes sense. That's it too. Like we're not going to tell you you can't have it.

Right.

We're going to tell you that it cannot be public facing and you have to screen who. And there are lots of organizations that mandate this. They're not just for profit. Some of them are nonprofit and some of them are government. So I mean everybody in some way, shape or form probably has an online ethics policy that they're supposed to, supposed to adhere to. They just don't realize it because it hasn't been documented.

That's, that's dangerous. So I mean as far as communication, there's two questions that I have with that because we're looking at our actionable steps.

Yep.

Communication, obviously don't just put it in the handbook, have a meeting. But how often do you change it?

I mean I would say once a year. You review it.

Okay.

You don't have to change it.

And do you like, if you review, when you review it, should that be another like hey, we've reviewed this and it stays the same.

Yeah, you can, you say we've reviewed it, we've stayed the same. You can ask for acknowledgement every year depending on the type of organization that you are. You can do training about, you can do media training, you can do PR training with your organization if you need to. Every year there's certain organizations that it's required of. It just depends.

Interesting. I'm assuming you don't want to do that training.

We do do that training.

Oh gosh, yikes.

Yeah.

Not me. Not.

We talk through the policies. Yes. I mean there's certain. I mean because part of it too is it can also fall in your harassment training. So you're supposed to do harassment training every year. Part of it, there's always a component around, you know what is online.

From my aspect, two things define the brand voice. Make sure people know what that brand voice is. Give them an idea of like hey look, here's our once again the core mission the core values in our vision. If it doesn't fit within this, if you feel it goes way against this, don't do it. Just don't do it. The other thing from that aspect too is consider the role, is make sure that, like, as you're doing this now, this leads me to a question that's a policy question. Can you have it written differently for executive team and others?

Yes.

Wonderful. See, learn something every day. The last one, like, I'm going to tell people to have a podcast about it. Yes. Because you should lead with constructive dialogue.

Yes.

So go ahead. Like if someone has a bad post, go ahead and do a pod. No.

The grimace on Chrissy's face.

I thought we were going in a different direction.

No, no. When she realized where I was headed.

With that and she's like, no.

I mean, you thought.

Yeah. You thought I was going to turn before the cliff. I did not.

Thanks for leaving behind the rocks.

So what is the single most important.

Thing a social media policy Policy should have all over it?

Employee acknowledgment. They have to sign it, you have to document that you gave it, that they read it. I don't care if they read it, that they said they read it, so it's important. All right, you ready?

Yep.

So from a brand perspective, what's a simple proactive step a company can take to encourage employees to be positive brand ambassadors in social media?

I always say, like, first is encourage. You typically don't take the disgruntled employee and be like, hey, you want to.

Post on social media about us?

Don't do that.

But encourage people.

Yeah.

And the other thing is to, is ask, hey, what do you, what do you see that's good here? Like, hey, I, I had pizza this week. Would you be willing to post about pizza this week? We just did this thing for a client. Yes. Post about that. Would you be willing to do. I mean, if you ask people like, what their wins are.

Yeah.

And then say, hey, could you put that up on LinkedIn? Because then we'll probably share it as a company.

Yeah.

Bob just did the thing really well. Awesome. Let's click. Everyone feels good about it, so just encourage and ask. Yeah, I like that you survived.

I did only have mild heartburn. It's okay.

Let's say that was a sweaty 40 minute conversation.

To all of our listeners that are ready to face their fears head on. This is like walking into the, the dark basement as a little kid. Yeah. Thank you for joining us, Chrissy.

Thank you for your insights on this.

Thank you for your stress. Your I believe. Did I see a flask?

Is no, it's just my matcha Matcha. I love it.

For those of you that are looking for more resources on it business fix podcast.com be sure to follow us on all of the social medias. The business fix is where going to find it. A review, a subscription, go a long way. Next week we're going to talk about something much, much lighter, much better. Your responsibility to serve your community. I know you guys do a ton on these.

Excited about this one.

Yeah, we do. We do a fair bit too. And yeah, with that being said, do me a favor, take care of yourself. If you can take care of someone else. We see you very, very.