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5 Rules for Business Twitter

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Management

If your business isn't using social media tools, now is the time, says Sharlyn Lauby in the 5 Ws of Social Media. She reminds us that social media tools such as Twitter offer businesses a valuable form of communications. If you're mystified by Twitter, see her notes on Dell and Zappo's. If you think the best way to deal with social media is ignore it, see how Domino's was embarrassed by some workers. Her five rules are:

Set policy guidelines for employee posting. In particular, remind employees that posting on social media sites is not private, so don't do things like harass or badmouth other employees. It includes a link to the recent firing of two Domino's workers after they did bad things with food and posted the video on YouTube.
Don't encourage corporate social media posting without a sense of whether employees buy into the company mission. But note that companies like Dell are using Twitter to sell things.
Remember that social media is for all employees, just like the phone and email.
Train employees on how to use social media.
If you don't already have a policy for social media, start now.

posted by Michael Fitzgerald
April 30, 2009 @ 3:17 am

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