BEST PRACTICES
Salesforce.com Social Media Guidelines
Abstract We want to encourage employees where it makes sense to engage in social media to help market our products. This tip sheet provides guidelines on what to do and what not to do.
If you are participating on blogs, discussion boards, Twitter, Facebook or any form of social media, it’s important that you review the following guidelines in detail. Generally we want to encourage employees to contribute and participate in meaningful ways – it will strengthen the vibrant salesforce.com community. All employees who are representing the company in their commentary need to go through the social media certification program and follow the guidelines described below. ::
Conversations are a two way street – The goal is to encourage you to become part of the community conversation. This can be through blogging, commenting, contributing ideas, voting on content, posting/responding questions, or tweeting. When you start contributing remember to share the link love when you see something interesting and relevant, link to it. This will do the community a service and will also generate links back to the community.
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Be honest and transparent – At salesforce.com we believe in transparency and openness. This means that you should never contribute anonymously or under a pseudonym within the community. As an employee, when you comment on the company in your posts you are considered a company spokesperson. It is a best practice to provide some biographical info about yourself on your blog or Twitter page.
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Be interesting – There is no point in contributing if the community doesn’t find it interesting and useful. The upside is that if you are contributing about industry best practices, feature details, or future enhancements and you know what you are talking about, these are already very interesting topics to the community. Being interesting also comes from bringing your personality to the forefront. Contributors that use their own voice and let their self-expression shine through are the best contributors.
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Know your audience – Your audience should be the center of the focus, not you. Understand what they care about, why they are reading what you are writing, and what their interests are. The more you know about your audience, the better you can connect with them.
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Be respectful – Always respect your audience. Do not use ethnic or racial slurs, personal insults, or obscenity in your community participation. Regarding competitors, note that we only position ourselves against larger competitors and don’t comment on the smaller ones.
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Quality matters – The devil is in the details so use your spell-checker and check your work. If you are a first time contributor, ask someone who is seasoned to review your post and provide feedback. If you find you’ve made a mistake, be up front about it and correct it quickly but do so transparently by leaving a note about what was changed.
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Don’t share company or financial secrets – while we are very open and transparent in what we share, it is not ok to share company insider information. Here are some examples of what to not comment on or post about: • • •
Revenue or share price Pricing Future product release dates
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Unannounced customers Growth by product line, vertical or region
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Deals in the pipeline Pending acquisitions Security and performance of our service Industry rumors Executive leadership
If you have any question about the appropriateness of a contribution, review it first with your manager. You can also refer to the Official Privacy Policy for additional questions. ::
No forward looking statements – You need to be very careful not to make any forward looking statements. Do not make promises on future application functionality which may or may not be delivered.
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Don’t register channels without prior consent – While it is easy to spin up a new Facebook page or Twitter feed you must run it through the social media team first. Once new channels are created they can quickly take on a life of their own on the Internet. Migration after the fact can be painful.
If you have any questions about what’s in bounds or out, please contact your manager, Jane Hynes in Public Relations or Jamie Grenney on the Social Media team and they’ll be more than happy to steer you in the right direction or escalate the issue to the right individuals.
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For More Information Visit the social media resource center: https://sites.google.com/a/ salesforce.com/socialmedia/
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