Corporate vs. non-profit social media guidelines: an empirical evaluation

The purpose of this paper is to explore the main characteristics of social media guidelines (SMG) of profit and nonprofit organizations and determine whether organizations communicate these guidelines effectively to employees and volunteers. We use content analysis to analyze fifty social media guidelines based on a framework formerly used to assess business documents and ethical codes. The results indicate the majority of guidelines received average scores, which implies they barely manage to stimulate change, direct action, provide facts or emphasize the importance of building trust. From a practical perspective, this research provides marketing professionals with a framework to analyze the organizations' SMGs to reveal gaps, point to opportunities for improvement or take the findings into account when developing new guidelines.