Pub. 3 2013 Issue 1

24 www.azbankers.org Twitter, LinkedIn, and online video), and be prepared to add new categories as they develop. 3. Decide who owns what. Using social media at work is different than using it at home. Draw lines, especially in cases that might be ambiguous, and check those lines with a competent lawyer to make sure you aren’t overstepping. In addition, make sure that work accounts are owned by the company and not by the employee who works for the company. 4. Pay attention to privacy. Employees and customers both have a right to privacy, after all, and so you need to pay attention to whether confidential or private information is being kept safe. Nobody had to worry about privacy when information was kept on paper in a filing cabinet, but now that it is so easy to transfer documents through email or web sites, or even download files to an iPad, Nook, or Kindle, you need policies to guide people about what is, or isn’t, acceptable. Employees should not use social media to distribute private or confidential information whether they are at home or at work. Since people sometimes forget just how public these social media forums can be, you want to make it clear to them. 5. Decide who is in charge of managing and participating in social media. What you want are one or more media advocates who can respond quickly to whatever is going on online. Someone may be doing this already. Maybe it’s even a group. Find them, and train them so they can do the best job possible in presenting your brand. 6. Other employees are also going to be involved in social media. Decide what your policies are about that. This is where you need to find the delicate balance between the rights of your bank and the rights of your employees. You will want to look at what other banks, associations, or companies have done. Kabani suggests looking at the social media policies developed by companies such as Intel, The Emerging Technology Department at the Air Force, and Telstra, which is an Australian company. 7. Decide what can, and cannot, be shared online. Some topics may be taboo. Private and personal information needs to be kept private, both for employees and for customers. Bank secrets need to stay that way. And, of course, online conduct should be both civil and legal. You don’t want anything that suggests the schoolyard bully, racism, or a general lack of class and integrity. 8. Decide how to monitor social media. You won’t know whether policies are being broken if you never look. Free and paid tools can help you monitor. 9. Train people. Many times, violations are the result of people not thinking or not knowing any better. You can eliminate that problem by teaching them. More importantly, though, making it easy for employees to get involved in helping you build a strong brand is the smart thing to do. The synergy of having employees work together to build your brand, intelligently and skillfully, can only improve your effectiveness. Social media is here to stay. Those who understand it best will use social media to their advantage. The most successful organizations of all, however, are the ones where everyone is involved in making the right choices to create and maintain a strong and healthy brand. Z visit us online! www.azbankers.org www .a zb a nk ers.org Q Social Media — continued from page 23 For more information, contact Sophie Hanson at l 855.747.4003 or www.thenewslinkgroup.com. Social media is here to stay. The most successful organizations of all are the ones where everyone is involved in making the right choices to create and maintain a strong and healthy brand.