Avoid making disparaging remarks about the organization, its products, or its employees. Negative or controversial posts can undermine the company’s reputation, especially if they are viewed by potential clients, job candidates, or current employees. These guidelines identify who runs your company’s social media account.
This infographic shows exactly what I mean, breaking down how a core element like typography can be adapted across different platforms while still feeling like your brand. This dictates the feel of any text on your images or in your videos. Pick one or two core fonts—a primary one for bold headlines and a secondary one for body copy—and commit to them. Specifying the exact fonts and weights (e.g., “Helvetica Neue Bold” for titles, “Roboto Regular” for text) ensures every single graphic feels like it belongs to the same family. If you’re still on the fence, our guide on choosing colors for your brand can help you think strategically.
For most companies, it helps keep social media communication consistent and avoids mistakes. But for certain organizations, like government agencies, insurance companies, and medical service providers, these policies are non-negotiable. Because they need to follow strict laws to protect private data, avoid misinformation, and stay compliant with regulations. A social media policy is a set of rules that helps your team know how to post and interact online in a way that protects your brand. Good social media policies set boundaries for how employees behave online and protect both workers and the company’s reputation. Social media guidelines are like training wheels that give employees the basic rules they can follow to learn how to connect on social media.
Personal Social Media Accounts Guidelines
Employees who violate our social media policy will be contacted directly by our HR manager. Depending on the severity of the violation, discipline can include a verbal warning, mandatory sensitivity training, loss of access to corporate social media accounts and even termination of employment. Creating a comprehensive social media policy helps empower employees to use social media effectively while minimizing risks to the company’s brand and reputation. Every effective policy covers certain must-have components, from defining ownership to setting clear conduct guidelines. If you’re building yours from scratch, you can follow along using our free social media policy template — it’s structured to include all of these components. An official company social media policy helps to maintain your brand voice and mitigate social media risks.
How To Create A Social Media Policy: Step-by-step
Many organizations also add an AI usage policy and industry-specific guidelines (like HIPAA, FINRA, SEC, or FCA requirements). UUW Medicine’s compliance department oversees patient privacy and information security, so, it’s no surprise that they have a robust social media policy. It applies to faculty, staff, students, and anyone else professionally involved with the department. The guidelines should also include instructions about using your brand’s logo, such as the right time and place to use your company’s logo on social media. Your social media policy is an important guideline that protects your company from a variety of legal issues.
How To Use Content Pillars For Your Social Media Strategy
How you handle criticism says more about your brand than a thousand positive comments ever could. Your guidelines need a crystal-clear process for managing complaints and dealing with toxic behavior. Think of this part of your brand guide as a playbook for every interaction. It gives your team the confidence to act as true brand ambassadors, turning simple conversations into loyalty-building moments.
Account-generated postsBe mindful that all content posted on OUSMAs affect the image and reputation of the University. Never post content that contains profanity, hate speech, personal attacks against others or slurs. Posts should not disparage anyone, particularly the University, University System office or trustees, University employees or students, or other institutions.