In the past week, I’ve had several different people ask me about how to go about creating policies, plans, and strategies related to social media and communications. I figure that if multiple people are asking me about it in the space of one week, there must be a whole lot more people wondering about it on a regular basis, too. And as it happens, I love putting together policies and plans and strategies! (Seriously. I get really excited about it).
Social media policies are very valuable internal documents to have for your organization, and you can develop them internally or hire a communications specialist to help you out.
Without further ado, here is a template, or an outline, of how you might want your social media policy to look:
Each section will likely be between 1/2 page and 2 pages in length. 
1. Introduction:
- Backgrounder on your organization, including the purpose of the organization, mission statement, and goals.
- Clearly-stated purpose (outlined in a few sentences or bullet points) for why you will be using social media for your organization.
- Capacity for your organization to use social media, including who will be taking the lead on this project (this should be very brief, as an opening to the next section).
2. Organizational Capacity:
- More in-depth explanation of the capacity of your organization to use social media (what your staff capabilities are and organizational abilities).
- The amount of time you expect your social media leader to take for social media each day / week / month (if possible, also broken down into the types of social media used; you can even include here the amount of time you expect them to take on actual posting vs. interacting vs. researching best practices).
3. Demographics:
- Who are your target demographics as an organization? Who specifically do you want to reach via social media? (E.g. Women aged 25 – 30 who have children aged 3 – 7, live in Winnipeg, and grow gardens). This can be several different groups, but be as specific as possible.
- What do you want your audience to do once you’ve reached them? (E.g. donate to your organization, share your social media posts, visit your website, etc.).
4. Social Media Targets:
- Outline of which social media platforms you will be using (include here the usernames / passwords / email accounts as necessary).
- Metrics for what you want out of using social media (number of increased followers per month, yearly goals, numbers of shared posts, reach, etc.).
- Broader organizational targets from using social media (increased awareness about your organization, greater participation in programs, etc.).
- Number and frequency of links to specific webpages, and photos / videos of your organization’s work.
5. Expectations of Social Media Leader:
- Frequency of posting on various social media platforms, response turnaround time, ratio of organizational promotions to partner promotions to general interest postings, etc.
- Besides reaching the above-stated targets, what else do you want your social media leader to do? For example, create a listing of partner Twitter handles, organize Twitter chats, provide detailed quarterly reports on social media metrics, meet once a week with your staff on what their needs are, etc.
- What “voice” does your organization have? What can your social media leader post about, and what can they not? This is an extremely important section to include and should be discussed in detail in person as well as drawn out clearly in this Policy.
6. Privacy Act and Confidentiality Agreement (appendices):
- Attach your organizational Privacy Act for your social media leader to refer to.
- Include a Confidentiality Agreement regarding the specifics around confidentiality for both you and your social media leader to sign.
Is there anything missing in this template? How would you go about creating a social media policy? Are there any other examples of policies / plans / strategies that you would like to see posted here? Share in the comments section below!