The Coca-Cola Company's New Social Media Principles

In this video, Adam Brown, of The Coca-Cola Company, shares some insights regarding their new social media policy, known internally as their "Online Social Media Principles". All Coca-Cola associates who wish to represent Coca-Cola, must complete a company social media certification program.

If you would like to review Coca-Cola's new social media policy, you may download the pdf here: http://bit.ly/ccsmpolicy. Thank you to Digital Buzz for breaking this story.

Create Your Social Media Policy Now

On Monday and Tuesday, I was honored to present at the Atlanta Chapter of the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM-Atlanta) Annual Conference. It was surprising to me that many companies do not have a social media policy.

To get started, I would recommend that you read this insightful post called, "10 Must-Haves for Your Social Media Policy". It was retweeted over 900 times and was written by Sharlyn Lauby. I met Sharlyn in person this year and she is exceptional. 

Research what others have created. Ed Bennett and Jason Rupp have compiled over 100 social media policies at Social Media Goverance. You can search by name or industry. It may give you some additional ideas.

Within your HR, recruiting, legal, IT and marketing teams, it is important to start this conversation.  After developing your company's social media guidelines, you may choose to start with an internal network like a company LinkedIn group that isn't public. Your employees can collaborate and build stronger relationships with each other. Once you have properly trained your staff, they can start branching out to external networks with the right guidance and expectations.