Communications teams and legal teams sometimes find themselves in adversarial relationships. One one hand, the PR and marketing teams want to say more, be transparent, show authenticity. On the flip side, the legal team thinks through all possible outcomes and worst-case scenarios. This often leads to a “less is more” communication policy, particularly in crisis situations.
When it comes to social media – when campaign concept often include contests, “surprise and delight” or user-generated content – a strong, healthy, communicative relationship with the legal team is necessary. In fact, a solid relationship with legal will allow you to do your job better.
So, how can you best work with the lawyers to accomplish your communication goals while guarding against legal pitfalls? Just like your social team has its own “language” and processes, so does legal. But, that language isn’t always easy for creative brains to understand.
We’ve worked with a number of clients’ legal teams lately. Drawing on those experiences, I asked our community managers to compile some tips and best practices. Here’s what works for us – hope these insights and learnings help you create a healthy, collaborative relationship with your legal team.
- Get client approval first. Make sure your client contact has signed off on all aspects of the proposal before you send it to your legal team to review. This person likely has insights into what types of questions you should expect from legal, which will help eliminate unnecessary back-and-forth. (And, in some cases, the client may prefer to be the one to communicate with legal in the first place.)
- Plan ahead. Allow plenty of lead-time for the legal department to review a proposal, and make sure you understand their nuances and protocols. Keep in mind there are a ton of federal and state regulations governing the operation of contests, sweepstakes and giveaways, which means you should typically plan on at least 30-60 days for the legal team to review them properly. (Pro tip: Newer social campaign formats, like “surprise and delight,” are almost always considered sweepstakes and require the same regulations.)
- Don’t skimp on the details. Share all supporting materials for each and every aspect of a promotion. Provide a brief statement on the purpose of the campaign and how it fits into the business, plus include confirmation that the client has signed off. Additionally, list specific concepts or issues the legal team should pay close attention to and/or modify. Again, all of this planning and detail upfront will eliminate back-and-forth later on.
- Two’s company, three’s a crowd. Pay close attention to any campaign details that could create issues with third party trademarks and/or copyrights. Any campaign that uses someone else’s intellectual property – or related content around a current event – has greater potential to receive heightened scrutiny, which means you probably need to build in even more time to get it approved.
- Don’t recreate the wheel. If you can, get a sample of approved Terms & Conditions to work from. Then, instead of starting from scratch for each new campaign/contest, only edit the specifics that affect what you’re proposing, and only request approval for those changes. That’ll shorten the review process.
- Develop a process doc. Once you’ve successfully executed a few campaigns, put your key learnings into a document that anyone involved in the process can easily reference. Include an organizational chart that details what people need to be included in certain situations, how long different types of responses and approvals will take, common questions to expect, and any other relevant details. This will help simplify the approval process moving forward, while making sure anyone and everyone who might need to be involved stays on the same page.
- Keep your cool. It’s easy to get frustrated when someone from the legal team changes a campaign concept you’ve worked hard on. But, it’s important to keep in mind that while you may be the expert on creating fun, engaging content and campaigns, the legal team is the expert in their own way, too. So, remember: If and when they have to change things, it’s for a good reason.
(Thanks to a few of Geben’s community managers – Briana, Kate, Kyle, Miranda, Nathan, Nicole and Tom – for contributing to this post!)
Photo credit: Pixabay.com