Social media content guidelines for employees · Marketing
Settle what staff may say about a client before somebody says it.
Our employee advocacy page is about persuading staff to post. This page is the document that makes that safe, and it is the one sales teams and regulated firms need before anything else.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
Social media content guidelines for employees are the written rules on what your staff may post about clients, prices, work that has not shipped, and each other. GullySales writes the document from your own trade and its limits, names who approves the grey cases, and sets out what happens when somebody gets it wrong.
Most companies have no rule until there is an incident. Then a policy arrives by email, written in an angry afternoon, listing things nobody was going to do anyway. It says nothing useful to a person deciding at eleven at night whether to name a customer.
A guideline that only forbids gets ignored. The version that works tells somebody what they may say, in their own words, without asking permission first. It also covers the quiet cases: a photograph, a screenshot, a post that praises your own product without saying the poster works for you.
Who it is for
This is written for you if these sound familiar.
- Sales teams whose people post about a win and name the buyer before the order is signed
- Clinics, law firms and advisory practices where a council or a regulator limits what may be said in public
- Manufacturers whose engineers photograph the shop floor with a customer's drawing on the screen behind them
- Businesses already running an employee advocacy programme with no rules underneath it
- Owners who had one bad post and now want to ban the subject altogether
Not for
It is not the right fit if.
- You want a document that stops staff mentioning work at all, which cannot be enforced and tells your team plainly that you do not trust them
- Nobody senior will own approvals, because a guideline with no named approver stalls on its first grey case
- What you actually need is a contract clause about confidentiality, which your lawyer drafts and we write around
The problem
Does this sound like your business?
What owners tell us on the first call, in their words.
“Somebody posted the client's name before we had the order”
A proud post about a site visit told a competitor which project was in play. The buyer saw it too, and had never agreed to be named.
“A photo of the shop floor had a customer's drawing in it”
Nobody was careless on purpose. There was simply no rule about what may appear in the background, and the screen behind the machine carried a part number under a confidentiality clause.
“Two of our people argued about a project in public”
A comment thread between colleagues about whose fault a delay was is now the second result for your company's name. Neither of them thought they were speaking for the business.
“Nobody knows who is allowed to answer a complaint”
A customer complains under a post and four people see it. One replies defensively, two wait for the owner, and the reply that lands is the wrong one.
What we do
Everything that is included.
Each deliverable, and what it gets you. Nothing here is an extra.
What may be said about a client
Named or unnamed, before the order and after handover, and the one-line written permission your project manager asks for. The disputes on this subject are about timing and consent more than secrecy.
The money rule
No quoted rates, no discounts, no hint of what a named customer paid. Written as example sentences, because staff argue with a principle and copy a sentence.
Work that has not shipped, and what is in the frame
Prototypes, a site before handover, a design under revision, anything under a confidentiality agreement. Also the background of a photo: screens, drawings, whiteboards, visitor registers and name badges. The list is drawn from your own contracts, not from a template.
Colleagues, complaints and arguments
No public disputes with each other, no replying to an angry customer at night, and a named person who handles it instead. Photographs of colleagues and customers need their agreement first, because a face is personal data. This section saves you most.
Regulated trades and the employee disclosure
Doctors, advisers, lawyers and company secretaries carry restrictions on claims, testimonials and identifiable client material, and the registration at risk is the individual's. Staff who praise your own product must also make the employment link visible, as Indian advertising standards expect. We write to your compliance adviser's reading, never our own.
Who approves what, by name
Three levels: post freely, check with one person, and do not post. Against each sits a name and a response time your team agrees, so the checking route costs less than the risk of skipping it.
What happens when somebody gets it wrong
Graded, and written down in advance. A first honest mistake is a deletion and a conversation, and staff who know that in advance come and tell you instead of hoping nobody noticed.
The one page people will read
The full document goes in the handbook. A single page with six examples goes to the team, because the handbook version is read once on the day of joining.
How the result is measured
- Staff briefed, by team and by joining date
- Posts sent for approval, and how long approval took
- Incidents, and whether the document already covered each one
- New cases added since the first version
- Time a new joiner takes before posting without checking
Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.
How it works
How the work runs
The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.
- 1
Read what your staff already post
A pass through the public accounts of the people who face customers. The real grey cases are in those posts, not in the management team's guesses.
- 2
Take the limits from your own contracts and trade
Confidentiality clauses, client agreements and whatever your council or regulator restricts. Your compliance adviser or lawyer settles the wording of that section, and checks how it fits your staff's data-protection notice.
- 3
Draft the may and the may not together
Both halves on the same page, with an example under each. A list of prohibitions alone teaches people that silence is the safe answer.
- 4
Test it on real cases
We put six awkward situations to the team and see whether the document answers them. Anything it cannot answer gets rewritten before it goes out.
- 5
Brief the team and keep the document alive
One short session, the page on the wall, and a signed acknowledgement from each person kept with their joining papers. New grey cases are added as they happen, because a guideline unchanged since it was written is one nobody consulted.
Where this fits
Three pieces of sales work, in this order.
This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 1, prospecting and lead generation. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.
Step 1
Sales audit
Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.
Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.
Step 2 · you are here
Sales process design
One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.
Start here if every salesperson sells differently.
Step 3
Sales management
A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.
Start here if the team has targets and no routine.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
Can we simply ban employees from posting about work?
Somebody has already posted something they should not have. What now?
We are a clinic. Are the rules stricter for us?
Does this cover what staff post about politics or their personal life?
Who should approve posts, the owner or a manager?
How is this charged?
How long is the contract?
How soon will we see results?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
By industry
Social media content guidelines for employees, written for your industry.
Related services
Often bought with this, or instead of it.
Read before you buy
- A social media policy for staff: what employees can post about the companyA one-page social media policy for staff that covers confidentiality, customer photos and complaints, with a sample you can adapt, and a way to tell which rules a small team actually needs.
- How a firm can help its partners build personal brands without losing controlA short policy template for a firm whose partners want visible names: shared guidelines, a light review step, ownership of accounts and what happens when someone leaves.
Your next practical step
Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.