As social media becomes more and more ingrained in our everyday lives, companies must take action in order to stay ahead and protect their image. Without a clear social media policy in place, a company risks being embarrassed by what employees post and even facing legal issues in case of a misstep. A social media policy is simply an outline of how an organization and its employees should conduct themselves online.

A survey by the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators in Zimbabwe (ICSAZ) uncovered that 54% of companies listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) have no social media policies. Consequently, this means that ZSE listed companies are contravening the ZimCode governance code. Well, this surprised me, I didn’t know that a social media policy is regarded so highly in Zimbabwe.

Anyway, although these companies are violating the ZimCode governance code, its a voluntary code meaning that there is no penalty for violating it as it is not backed by legislation. In other words, the ZimCode is a self-driven initiative which companies can voluntarily choose to enforce or not to.