If the company you work for is quite large, it is important to have a web communication policy. The policy is important because it helps define who can speak on behalf of the company. You don’t want to get into a situation where an employee appears to be speaking on behalf of the company on a social media platform. This could cause legal problems for both the company and the employee.
When an employee works for the company and chooses to talk about the company’s product or service, it should be clear in what capacity they are participating in the conversation. If they have authority to speak on behalf of the company, it must be made clear that they represent the company. If the authority is unauthorized, the employee must ensure that it is said to be her own personal opinion and not the thoughts of the company. In any capacity, the employee needs to know what they are allowed to discuss online.
Within your policy, make it clear who can issue documents on behalf of the company. Everyone thinks they are good writers, but there really are people who shouldn’t be writing papers that will be given to the general public.
If a problem arises, there should be a section within the web communication policy outlining who should be contacted within the company. This will help ensure that the right people are briefed on the details of the situation and determine if an action plan is needed.
Any type of communication to the public is a reflection of the brand. Everyone who will interact with an external audience should be trained in the basics of communication. You don’t want the worst copywriter in the company writing ads or press releases. It only takes one bad communication to tarnish the image that took years to build.
Don’t wait until a problem arises to create a policy. The policy should not be complicated to understand when you read it. The most important thing is to make sure that the policy is easy to find within your company.
Once a document is on the web and indexed by a search engine, there’s a big problem. So if you have an employee providing false information on a blog, the search engine will have it stored in its internal database. The information will be displayed if it matches the correct search criteria. Yes, the post can be removed, but most likely the damage has already been done because web users have already seen the post. The same goes for documents; once the document is indexed by the search engine, the only thing to do is delete the document and hope no one makes a copy or saves it to their computer.