CASE STUDY:
Building Enterprise-Wide Social Media Guidelines for a Global Tech & Gaming Company From the Ground Up
The Assignment ?
Create social-media usage guidelines.
Seemed simple enough, until it wasn't.
As social media became increasingly integrated into marketing, advertising, communications, & day-to-day operations of the company the same questions started surfacing across multiple departments. . .
What approvals were required?
What responsibilities came with managing official company accounts?
What types of content was okay to post from company-owned pages/accounts?
What disclosures were necessary?
When should Legal be involved?
How should third-party content be handled?
What happened when employees discussed company-related matters online?
At the time, there were no enterprise-wide social media guidelines addressing those issues.
The Work
Recognizing the need for a more consistent approach, Attorney Elle spearheaded the development of a working set of enterprise-wide social media guidelines designed to address recurring questions and establish clearer, unified, and practical expectations across the organization.
The project involved Recognizing the need for consistent guidance, Attorney Elle spearheaded the development of a working enterprise-wide social media playbook designed to establish clearer, unified & practical expectations across departments.
The project involved identifying recurring issues & questions, gathering input from stakeholders across multiple departments, evaluating risk, compliance, practical & legal considerations, reviewing platform-specific terms, privacy policies, disclosure requirements, and other platform rules, and translating legal, intellectual property, privacy, advertising & general business considerations into practical guidance intended for everyday use.
Attorney Elle also collaborated with colleagues across multiple teams, including intellectual property & branding, and privacy stakeholders, to help ensure the guidance reflected both organizational priorities and platform-specific realities.
It wasn't as simple as just creating a policy.
The goal was to create practical guidance & establish a system that accurately reflected how people were actually using social media in practice, in real time.
The Result?
A working set of enterprise-wide social media guidelines was developed, providing a centralized foundation for addressing recurring social media-related questions & promoting greater consistency across teams.
The Takeaway
The challenge wasn't figuring out how people were using social media.
The challenge was making sure everyone was working from the same set of expectations.
Please Note: Certain featured case studies are drawn from Attorney Elle's prior professional and/or personal work experiences. As such, some details are modified, generalized, anonymized, and/or omitted to protect confidentiality & comply with professional and/or ethical obligations.