PeopleMuster

Social media policy template

Social media policies overreach. A company cannot govern someone's evening, and trying to is how a reasonable document becomes a resented one.

For teams whose staff post publicly about their work, which is most of them now. Aimed at confidentiality and at who may speak for the company, not at policing anyone's account.

SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY — [Company name]
Effective [date] · Owner: [Marketing lead]

1. SCOPE
Covers posting about the company, its clients and its people, anywhere
public. Your personal life and your opinions are your own, and this document
does not reach them.

2. POSTING AS YOURSELF
Say where you work, we are glad you do. When you post about work:
  · make it clear the views are yours, not the company's;
  · never name a client, a project or a deal that is not already public;
  · never post a screenshot showing client data, internal tools or a
    colleague's information;
  · do not post about a live incident, an outage or anything unresolved;
  · do not discuss pay, offers or internal disagreements publicly.

3. WHO SPEAKS FOR THE COMPANY
[Marketing] runs the company accounts. Press and analyst questions go to
[named person]. Nobody else replies on the company's behalf, however wrong
the post is. Forward it instead.

4. CLIENT WORK
Work goes public only after the client has agreed, in writing, and after it
has shipped. That includes portfolio posts, case studies and before-and-after
screenshots. Check with [account lead] first, every time.

5. PHOTOS OF COLLEAGUES
Ask before you post a photograph of someone. A no needs no reason. Take extra
care with pictures that show a screen, a whiteboard or a door code.

6. RECRUITING AND REFERRALS
Sharing an open role is welcome. Use the published wording. Do not promise
anything about pay, timelines or the process.

7. IF A POST GOES WRONG
Tell [marketing lead] early. Do not delete quietly if it has been seen, and
do not argue in the replies. A correction posted quickly costs far less than
a thread defended for two days.

8. WHEN THIS MATTERS AT WORK
Posts that break confidentiality, harass a colleague, or are made in the
company's name without authority are dealt with under [the conduct policy].
Ordinary personal posting is not a work matter.

Approved by [name, title], [date].

Before you send it

  • Keep clause 1 first and keep it generous. A policy that opens by claiming your evenings gets dismissed before anyone reaches the useful parts.
  • The confidentiality lines are the ones that earn this document. Everything else is manners; those are the clauses that prevent real harm.
  • In some places, rules that restrict what staff may say publicly about pay or working conditions run into local protections. Have clause 2 checked before you publish it.
  • Give the incident clause a name and a route. Without one, a bad post is handled by whoever notices, which is how a small problem becomes an argument.
  • The live PeopleMuster instance holds twelve policies in five categories. A document like this one sits under Workplace Conduct. That beats burying it in a handbook appendix nobody opens.

Questions people ask about this letter

Can a company tell staff what to post personally?

Reach is limited, and the limits differ by country. Confidentiality and speaking in the company's name are defensible. Opinions posted on someone's own account usually are not, so keep the scope narrow.

Should staff be allowed to post about client work?

Only after the client agrees and the work has shipped. Written agreement, every time. A portfolio post is a disclosure, however proud you are of it.

What should happen after a bad post?

One named person, told early, deciding within the hour. Speed matters more than the wording of the correction, and quiet deletion after it has been seen usually makes things worse.

Other templates