Does your workplace have explicit rules about how employees can use social media? Does it spell out Facebook and Twitter by name and dictate details down to the blog disclaimers and avatar photos?

If so, it’s probably not as effective as your HR managers might think.

Why? Because giving social media its own HR policy isn’t cutting edge. It’s short-sighted. Your company’s time and energy would be far better spent developing a policy that can be universally applied to all types of digital communication — e-mails, forums posts, blog entries, tweets, status updates, etc.

Trying to create a unique policy for each digital tool is like trying to stomp out a colony of ants one bug at a time.

Digital communication is simply evolving far too fast for any workplace to keep up with. If all you did was amend your HR rules each time Facebook changed its formatting, sharing options or privacy settings, that alone would be a full-time job. Why spend your time chasing the wind?

In its new (and free) white paper, “Is Your Acceptable Use Policy Social Media-proof?”, online protection firm M86 Security tackles this issue of creating guidelines that encompass social media without getting too lost in the weeds.

It’s a good read, even for us rank-and-file types. And while I don’t agree with all their takeaways, it’s definitely a sound starting point for managers looking to cover their bases.

Social media adoption is growing faster than anticipated. It is becoming the new de-facto way of staying in touch with personal contacts, and increasingly, to network with professional contacts. Users spend more time every day, even at the workplace, communicating through these new sites —typically with very little control or security enforcement. This is why organizations need to address social media activities in their AUPs. Simply blocking all access will alienate users and increasingly limit their work-related activities.

I’m sure we’re all in agreement so far. After that, we get into the weightier and more heavily debated issues, like determining “acceptable behavior” on social networks.

At this point, I’d argue the white paper encourages a bit too much granular oversight of privacy settings and parsing out which sites are “work-related.”

Some of the data along these lines is pretty fascinating, though, such as this chart illustrating which sites and tools have been the subject of corporate policies (click to zoom):

In my opinion, a digital policy for employees should be akin to the U.S. Constitution. It should convey the organization’s overarching stance on how workers should comport themselves online.

The question isn’t whether your policy includes Twitter, Facebook, LinekdIn and YouTube. The question is whether your policy acknowledges that there is no longer a clear divide betwen the personal and the professional.

You’re probably asking, “But shouldn’t we get specific about what employees can say and where they can say it?”

Here’s where management comes in. Just as the Constitution must be interpreted each day by politicains and judges, so must managers help clarify how a company’s digital policy applies on the day-to-day level. Such explanations shouldn’t be difficult, if you’ve got the right policy.

A few questions I’d recommend asking yourself while creating or amending your company’s digital policies:

• Are we creating rules we have no consistent way to monitor or enforce?

• Do we have a system in place to keep employees updated regularly about how the policy applies to the changing nature of social networks?

• Does the policy convey a central, easy-to-understand philosophy, or is it just a hodge-podge of prohibitions and finger-wagging?

• Is our policy limited to just office computers and work hours? Have we clarified what these rules mean if an employee is off the clock or posting from home?

• Does our policy truly take mobile into consideration?

• Would these rules make sense if they applied to real-world situations? (For example, when was the last time you were talking to someone at a bar and they said, “Of course, these views are my own and do not reflect the opinion of my employer.”

Let’s be clear: I’m not advocating a vaguely worded and impractical policy that attempts to apply to everything and ends up applying to nothing.

And yes, management will occasionally need to create specific rules and procedures for specific channels, especially in large-workforce environments like retail and manufacturing. But it’s vital that these rules can be tied directly to a central governing philosophy on digital communication.

Otherwise, you’re essentially just building a raft out of scraps and calling it navigation.

David Griner is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

Photo credit: amateur_photo_bore on Flickr.

We are in the age of the Social Consumer, where social networks are transforming business as the attention of the consumer is focusing on their social streams. They learn, discover and share with their friends.

Facebook has generated a lot of BUZZ lately with its unveiling of a new location based “Places” with local deals. Successful companies are integrating Facebook into their marketing strategies. Fortune 500 companies are racing to see who can get the most “likes” and companies like WalMart are banking that you will share their deals with your friends.

Here are 5 reasons it is imperative that your business have a Customized Facebook Business page.

1. Fish Where the Fish Are. With over 500 million active users and 50% of them logging on to Facebook in any given day you are bound to have clients on Facebook.  Companies embracing social media will hold a strong competitive advantage.
2. Engage and Build Relationships. It’s not about selling your products and services but building relationships. To build relationships you need to create followers or fans of your brand, otherwise known as those who “Like” your page and content. Facebook’s Wall element provides a perfect opportunity to engage your visitors in 2-way conversations. Status updates can engage your clients by providing value as well as direct visitors to answer questions, post their comments and share their photos and videos.
3. Effective and Reasonable Marketing (Ads). Facebook ads are reasonably priced and you control your daily budget. You can target your niche market with pay-per-click and pay-per-impression options. Ads can be directed back to your business page to grow your fan base or directed to your website to make a purchase or redeem a coupon. Facebook recently included a social element to their paid ads with a set of metrics for the ad administrator. Nielsen report claims that almost 70% of users are more likely to click on an ad previously visited by their friends.
4. Maintain Strong Brand Awareness. You can build brand awareness with a customized Welcome page,  Product or Service page. Facebook Contests generate brand awareness especially when used in combination with Facebook ads. Users submit essays or photos and then ask their friends to vote for their entry. They can also share their entry on their wall making your brand visible to all of their friends.  You can also increase brand awareness results by integrating Facebook with traditional marketing channels.
5. Provide Customer Value.  Value can come in the content you share, from how-to videos to customer service tips. You can offer specials for Facebook users only. Facebook
6. Places is a location based tool for smart phone users like the iPhone and the Android. Once a business claims their place they can offer a deal or coupon for mobile users who check in at their location. The deal then appears on the users news feed where all of their friends can take advantage of too. You can also receive company value through polls and surveys and gather research from questions.

The results of these 5 elements will be the number of “fans” or “likes” your Facebook Page will produce.  How much is a Facebook fan worth?  Retailer Daily concludes,

“The average value a Facebook fan provides a brand is $136.38, but it can swing to $270.77 on average for “best” fans or go down to $0 in the “worst.”

Entwine Digital has created and managed many custom Facebook pages where clients have grown their fan base significantly. Darin Kidd’s page received over 1000 fans within the first 48 hours.  Our most recent project with Tony Williams, song writer and musician of Call the Law it’s Christmas, is to use Facebook to promote the Black Friday release of the animated video of the holiday song. Williams said, “I don’t know much about it but I do know I have to be on Facebook to let people know about my song and get the video to go viral.”