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For organizations operating under the watchful eye of industry regulators, getting the social media ball rolling is not always straightforward.
Every stage of deploying social media at a large regulated firm requires a thoughtful approach : making the business case to enable regulated users to use social media, creating a social media working group to identify and mitigate the risks, crafting polices and processes, evaluating and selecting third party vendors.
However, the success of your program will often depend on how your users are initially introduced to social media. First impressions count.
Deploying social media in phases enables organizations to iron out any kinks with policies, process and technology to provide the best possible first experience for your users. Here are some tried-and-tested steps that many regulated organizations take:
- Test
- Pilot
- Read-only access
- Early Deployment: Pre-approved library content
- Mature Deployment: Launching an authentic social voice
Test
Invite no more than 20 people to test your polices, processes and systems. You may want to invite the initial Social Media Working Group that was established define and mitigate risks, key stakeholders, plus one or two end users from each of the businesses who are early adopters. Create scripts to test policies and technology and systematically test these for a fixed period, typically two weeks. Use the key learnings to revamp policies and work with technology vendors to fix any technological issues.
Pilot
The most manageable recipe for a pilot is the use of one social network, with no more than 50 participants, against criteria set by particular lines of businesses. It’s best to not to invite your “Top Producers” at this early stage. Wait until all the wrinkles are ironed out before you invite the highly visible, and often very vocal, financial advisors, the corporate social responsibility team, or the Mayor to participate. You want your most valuable resources, with the ear of management, to have a flawless experience from the day one.
Develop and deliver training that includes your firm’s social media usage policies, as well as best practices on how to use social media effectively. Once everyone in the initial Pilot is up to speed, one approach is to continue with the same group and add additional social networks. Or you could have multiple Pilots with different groups using different social media networks. For pilots, you could allow posting of pre-approved content, or for the most conservative and risk-averse firms, allow read-only mode for participants.
Read-Only Access
For organizations currently blocking social media at work, allowing access to social media (typically
Even in read-only mode, your employees could use social media to identify opportunities and follow up in-person or other forms of communication.
Early Deployment - Preapproved Content from a Library
For this stage, develop a Content Strategy and Editorial Calendar. Regulatory constraints mean it is good practice to avoid product pitches or recommendations of any type, whether financial or medical. Instead, present general, helpful information that appeals to your target audience. Some firms include more lighthearted, entertaining fare as well. Often, existing corporate content can be re-purposed in ‘snackable’ portions for use on social media. Track and analyze the engagement (clicks, likes, shares, comments), and tweak your Editorial Calendars to create more engaging content going forward.
Mature Deployment – Developing an “Authentic Voice”
As your organization’s use of social media matures, you may allow users to post personal or customized content. This allows your users’ personalities to shine through, honing that elusive ‘authentic voice’, and greatly improving the effectiveness of your social media program.
You may want to test this approach by pre-reviewing all content from a select group of users before it is posted. Of course, this labor-intensive review process will not be possible when this is rolled out on a larger scale. So make sure you put in place an automated monitoring system that looks for ‘trigger words’ or ‘lexicons’ and alerts compliance or supervisors in real-time, and blocks inappropriate posts where necessary.
To sum up, regulated firms need to take a thoughtful approach to deploying social media. A phased rollout gives organizations the assurance that their social media deployment will be compliant while providing the best possible atmosphere for your employees to use social media effectively.
