Coca-Cola has updated their social media policies (or principles, as Coca-Cola is calling them). Guess what? The policies are only 3 pages in length. Yep, that’s it. 3 pages. One of the largest brands in the world that sells into 200 countries with dozens of products and billions of dollars in revenue has figured out how to boil their social media policies down to only the nitty gritty.
The policy encompasses a total of 20 points that are broken out into 3 key areas:
- 5 Core Values of the Company in the Online Social Media Community
- 5 Expectations for Associates’ Personal Behavior in Online Social Media
- 10 Expectations for Online Spokespeople
Adam Brown, the head of social media at Coca-Cola, explains the framework for these new guidelines in an interview with Andy Sernovitz. If you can’t view this video, you can grab it over on YouTube.
If you want to read Coca-Cola’s new social media policy, you can either read it below or grab it over on Scribd.
Coca-Cola Company’s Online Social Media Principles
At New Marketing Labs I recently had someone from a small to medium company contact me and asked if we could review their social media policy. While we didn’t end up working with the company, their social media policy was 41 pages and 3 slide decks. I think my buddy C.C. Chapman summarized it the best after he tweeted out the link to Conrad Lisco’s post about Coca-Cola’s new policies:
For Coca-Cola, this new policy was updating an older set of guidelines that they had already in place. But, over the course of 2010 we’ll continue to see more brands adopting social media policies. What I found really interesting is how Adam talked about that it was a combination of several teams that came together to boil their social media policy into a 3 page document meant to serve as a set of 5 commitments from the company and 15 guidelines.
Has your company adopted a social media policy yet? What are your thoughts on Coca-Cola’s new policies?
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Would love to know your thoughts on Coca-Cola’s new social media policies http://bit.ly/7LUaCo
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Interesting – RT @justinlevy Coca-Cola adopts new social media policy http://bit.ly/7LUaCo
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I love it! Agree w/ @cc_chapman too. RT @justinlevy What are your thoughts on Coca-Cola’s new social media policies http://bit.ly/7LUaCo
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If Coke can keep their Social Media policies to 3 pages, so can YOU! http://om.ly/eAdh
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@justinlevy Great post on Coca Cola’s social media policy. Clean and concise while being informative for all employees. http://bit.ly/5qWuWl
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Justin Levy – Coca-Cola Adopts New Social Media Policies http://bit.ly/5M90tA
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Coke has a new social media policy. It’s forward thinking and open. http://bit.ly/4RBhH0
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Coca-Cola Adopts New Social Media Policies: http://bit.ly/4RBhH0 – by Justin Levy @justinlevy / #Video #SocialMedia #Policy
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This is #awesome! Go Coke! RT @justinlevy: Would love to know your thoughts on Coca-Cola’s new social media policies http://bit.ly/7LUaCo
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Honestly, I rather like it. While it's filled with corporate over-exposition, every document is. I imagine if they dispensed with much of what they have to include to have legal clarity, the document would be less than two pages long. It seems to come down to “Be a good person, and if you're not representing the company officially, make sure people know that.”
Does any social media policy need more? Clearly in the document, Coca-Cola is pointing at other programs (Social Media certification program) – but isn't including the tenets of those program in their umbrella document. This is a smart move, from the point of making sure the entire staff get behind the main document and commitments.
CC's right. If one of the biggest distribution companies in the world can trim to 3 pages, no one has any excuse to be more complicated unless they're creating a social media division.
That's a really clean social media policy.
I think it is important to encourage and not prohibit other employees from diving into social media. By having some guidelines and core values to follow, it is easy to digest and understand.
Really nice document!
Coca-Cola Adopts New Social Media Policies http://bit.ly/50j8tO
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Coca-Cola Adopts New Social Media Policies: Coca-Cola has updated their social media policies (or principles, a.. http://bit.ly/4zyWb6
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As a person who works in the world of social media for a Fortune 100 Company, I love it.
KISS = The way to go…
Policy
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Coca-Cola’s new SM policy: useful for CMO’s creating a policy or setting goals for their firm. http://bit.ly/4RBhH0
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Coca-Cola Adopts New Social Media Policies | Justin Levy: Excellent social media policy with great ideas for a tra… http://bit.ly/8aa2NR
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I definitely agree Chris! It's important for companies to have
guidelines in place but to also encourage employees to use social
media tools. In my opinion, Coca-Cola has developed an excellent set
of guidelines that will be used as a template for many others.
Exactly. It usually can be boiled down to: Don't be stupid.
Coca-Cola Adopts New Social Media Policies http://bit.ly/7LUaCo
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Coca-Cola 3 page Social Media Principles. If they can make it this simple, surely its not beyond the rest of us! http://bit.ly/4RBhH0
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@metawerkz Coca-Cola did it right, in my humble opinion: http://bit.ly/4RBhH0
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I missed Coca Cola’s new Social Media policy: it’s good and useful to know and consider http://ow.ly/YSso
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This is very useful to me in Ireland. Here few companies have social media (SM) policies. I think this means that there will be a deluge of SM policy writing in the second half of 2010.
With this example of Coke, and a few others I've collected, I'll be well placed to help the companies I work with to sort their values, and requirement out quickly – rather than take ages to agree clarity.
Chris, It's your use of the word “clean” that attracted me to comment. Thanks for that. I'll be using your word
We'll definitely see more social media policies being written and
implemented during 2010. It will be interesting to see if other large
brands follow the lead of companies like Coke and keep them short and to the
point or if they'll become long documents filled with lots of legalese.
Brilliant !