When crafting a corporate social media policy, it is helpful to read critique’s of other policies (as well as reading other policies). By analyzing the good and bad (lacking) of Walmart’s Twitter policy, Augie Ray help shine light on issues that should impact all businesses developing policies.

While his whole article is worth reading, here is a quick highlight. Ray suggests that Walmart needs to set specific expectations of employee behavior when tweeting. The following list can be helpful for all potential tweeting companies:

• How many tweets per day or week are expected
• Rules for tweeting; what topics or language is acceptable and what is not
• Follow-back guidelines–when should followers be followed?
• Expectations for when and how to respond to @replies (or direct messages)
• Expectations for retweeting
• Expectations for seeking out new followers–since following people is a successful way to build a list of followers, how many new people should be followed each week and what are the criteria?
• Expectations for monitoring for and responding to brand mentions on Twitter
• Expectations for engaging with and showing interest in followers regarding non-brand matters.

Thanks to Charlene Li’s new Altimeter Group for the link to Ray’s article.