What serves as the foundation of every social media governance model?

The foundation of every social media governance model is the social media policy. A social media policy outlines the rules and guidelines for how an organization approaches social media engagement, ensuring consistency and alignment with the overall brand values and objectives. This document serves to protect the organization from online risks while providing clear expectations for employees and stakeholders regarding their social media conduct.

Having a well-defined social media policy helps to establish a framework for decision-making and actions on social platforms. It covers aspects such as acceptable behavior, content sharing, crisis management, and compliance with legal and regulatory standards. Therefore, it is the cornerstone on which other elements, such as procedures, communication guidelines, and brand strategy, should be built. These other aspects may support the policy but do not fundamentally serve as its basis.