Social media compliance training can be tricky. On the one hand, you want your employees to follow your company’s official social media channels and share their enthusiasm for your company online.

On the other hand, you don’t want employees accidentally sharing confidential company information, unintentionally engaging in inappropriate product promotion, or otherwise presenting themselves as official company spokespersons when posting on their personal social media accounts.

If your training comes across too heavy-handed, your employees might be too scared to ever like a company post. But if your training is too vague, you could leave them confused, or worse, they could feel like they can post or comment on just about anything.

So how do you hit the sweet spot? Here are a few tips.

1) Know your audience. If your social media training is being assigned to all your employees, don’t weigh it down with rules that only apply to the people who can post to your company’s official social media channels. Handle their training needs separately. Your employee-wide training should focus more on the do’s and don’ts of personal social media use.

2) Include lots of examples. Be sure to include enough examples to illustrate your social media rules. Are there some company posts that employees can comment on and others they should not? Show at least one realistic example of each.

3) Explain the “why.” Remind employees why your company has a social media policy in the first place. It’s not just because regulations apply to the information your company shares. Patients, healthcare professionals, investors, job candidates, and other stakeholders rely on accurate and clear information about your products and your company.

4) Tell them who to ask. No matter how great your training is, people will have questions. Make it clear who employees can reach out to with questions.

5) Take a continuous learning approach. Just like any training, your social media training won’t stick without some sort of reinforcement. Consider sending out short follow-up videos or occasional email blasts that reinforce key guidance.

I’m sure you’ve noticed that all these rules apply to any training subject. But social media training can be a slippery slope, partly because it addresses non-work activities and partly because government and industry guidance is not as robust as it is for other areas.

To help your employees understand how they can appropriately engage with company-related social media content, NXLevel Compliance has just released a new training module, Social Media Matters. If you are interested in more information about this module, contact us at info@nxlevelsolutions.com.

In the meantime, we hope you find these tips helpful as you continue your journey as a compliance training hero!