New Social Media Marketing Contract Templates

Social media. For many, the words conjure up thoughts of selfies, the oversharing of personal (not to say mundane) details, and perhaps the fascinating 140 character-at-a-time insight into the lives of beloved celebrities. For businesses, social media can be a productivity headache as employees spend more time tweeting than meeting. Indeed, from this standpoint, it is vital to have in place a suitable policy governing your employees’ use of social media in the workplace (for which, see our latest Employment updates). But wait… there’s more!

Social media can also be a powerful marketing tool for a wide range of businesses. With the right strategy, a business can reach an audience of thousands through social media. While some prefer to keep their online advertising activities in-house, there are many that wouldn’t have the first clue where to start. Just like SEO and SEM, then, Social Media Marketing is serious business, and this is where we come in!

This month, Simply-Docs launches two new templates designed for businesses and freelancers providing social media marketing services to business clients.

The new agreements address a wide range of important factors. First and foremost, in many cases a client will be parting company with valuable proprietary materials which may range from logos and assorted copyright materials to confidential business information and social media login information. The terms of these new templates help to ensure that such materials are kept safe at all times. Similarly, IP rights in content created for clients must be addressed. They remain the property of the service provider only until payment is received, whereupon they must be transferred to the client. The client owns the materials, the service provider is paid, everyone’s happy! Further support in this area is provided by a range of warranties and mutual indemnity provisions.

While structured to provide an easy, ready-to-use model, the new social media marketing templates are also inherently flexible. In many situations clients may want to provide detailed instructions such as brand guidelines to ensure that their business image remains consistent with their established practices and values. Schedules included in the templates therefore allow for as little or as much detail as desired to be provided (in the form of “required information” and “required materials” – required in the sense that the service provider cannot provide the social media marketing services without them). While there is certainly virtue in keeping things simple, we would always recommend leaving no detail out in this regard – as many a celebrity or politician will tell you, you can delete a tweet, but they have a nasty habit of coming back from the dead. The value of establishing clear ground rules and maintaining a good, carefully planned image on social media should not be underestimated!

The new Social Media Marketing Agreement is available in two flavours: one designed for companies with multiple employees, the other for self-employed freelancers, taking into account the all-important IR35 considerations, emphasising the independence and self-employed status of the freelancer.

Once almost exclusively the domain of the teens and tweens, social media has fast evolved into a serious business tool and with the right contract terms in place, you can be sure of a smooth and effective business relationship when managing your client’s social media presence. Check out the links to the right to access our new templates today!