Do what today others won’t, so tomorrow, you can do what others can’t.
― Brian Rogers Loop

This adage applies to many things in life, but is especially true when it comes to social media. Once something is posted in social media, its hard to unsee what you have seen.

By now many businesses have realized that proactively listening to brand mentions online is a smart thing to do at a relatively low cost. Social Media Management firms can handle this for you, making sure you don’t miss a beat on the web. The one area that is a little harder to track is your employees. It may be time to educate your employees on the importance of projecting a positive presence in social media not only for their own career, but for the reputation of the company they work for.

One recent example is of an employee of Little Cesars posting in social media about a customer. On May 30, 2018, an employee posted not only a vulgar message about the customer, he posted her picture on Instagram. The customer got home and  her 16 year-old daughter told her she was on Instagram! The customer then called her local news channel and the rest is history!

So, where do you begin? The first place to begin is with your social media marketing department. Check out what they are seeing in their social media listening. Are they capturing any employee posts about work? Most likely this is hard to find by simply monitoring the brand name. Most times an employee will not mention the brand name in the post. In the case of Little Caesars, the employee used “lil caesars”, which should be added to keyword searches in their monitoring software.

We suggest incorporating social media policies into your training program. Use stories like the one above ( there are several of these on the internet you can find as well) as a way to showcase what not to do. Stories stick in the human brain much more and make a much bigger impact on a new employee.

Asking employees not to post anything with regard to their job is not out of line and can be incorporated into a confidentiality agreement too. Setting up guidelines upfront on what is acceptable will save you a lot of problems down the line.