FIVE KEY QUESTIONS Corporate Board Members Should

Be Asking About Social Media

A social media policy for employees is simply a must-do today and is becoming a standard part of every company's employment agreement.

The policy outlines what is acceptable behaviour when employees engage in social media, particularly when their social media profiles link back to the company or when they are talking about their work.

Do We Have a Social Media Policy for Employees?

Listening involves using a monitoring technology to collect and sort relevant conversations about the company across blogs, forums, Twitter, social networks and review

sites. Listening is important for many reasons, but most of all it helps you identify if and when a rumour or issue about your business takes off online. Speed kills and you can’t afford not to know when an issue is spreading.

Are We Listening?

Staff training is one of the most important ways to build capacity and understanding of social media within an organisation. Whether it's inviting in a blogger or social media

marketer to speak at a lunchtime session, or developing an official "Belts" program, training will deliver a long-term and broad benefit for the business – particularly when it comes to such a quickly changing landscape.

Are We Training Our People?

Most crises, by their nature, are unexpected. If your company is confronted with a crisis, you don't want to be fiddling around trying to find the username and password to YouTube. Or

figuring out who's in charge. Ask to see evidence of a plan - how quickly could we update the Web site? Do we have a listening program in place? Who is going to be commenting on the company's behalf via Twitter and blog commenting? Get answers.

Do We Have a Digital Crisis Plan?

Google is the first stop for most people when they go online, so what appears in the top 10 results is as important as what's displayed on

your company's homepage. One thing to know is that search engines love social media content. If your C-suite is active in social media, they'll have a great presence in search engines which is important to the business.

What Shows Up When You Google the Names of the C-Suite?

Additional Reading

Ogilvy On: Social Media For Crisis Management http://www.asiadigitalmap.com/2009/12/jamie-moeller-ogilvy-john-bell-crisis

Ogilvy On: Social Media for B2B Companies http://www.asiadigitalmap.com/2010/03/socialmedia-b2b-companies

Ogilvy Red Chair Series http://www.youtube.com/user/OgilvyPRAustralia

Socialise the Enterprise http://www.slideshare.net/OgilvyWW/socialize-the-enterprise

Telstra‘s Social Media Engagement Policy (PDF) http://www.telstra.com.au/abouttelstra/download/document/social-media-company-policy-final-150409.pdf

One company that goes with this online-

initiated flow is Ogilvy. “

“ Ogilvy's digital specialist Brian Giesen outlined

the best strategies for getting business results on

social networking site Twitter.

” “

” 25 China Experts you should follow on

Twitter… Thomas Crampton.

Brian Giesen Regional Director

Ogilvy 360° Digital Influence

p 02 8281 3853

e brian.giesen@ogilvy.com.au

t @bdgiesen

b www.australiadigitalmap.com

”