Two different problems, often confused
Employers ask for staff social media training meaning one of two things. Either get our people posting about us properly, which is advocacy. Or stop our people causing a problem, which is awareness and policy. We run both, and the first thing we do is establish which one you actually need. From £1,200 for up to six people, excluding VAT.
Which problem are you trying to solve?
Advocacy: get staff posting
You want people sharing company news, posting about their work and building profiles that reflect well on the organisation. The barrier is almost never the technology. It is that nobody has told staff what they are allowed to say, and most are quietly afraid of getting it wrong in public.
A good advocacy session removes that fear, gives people something worth posting and makes it take five minutes a week rather than feeling like a second job.
Awareness: stop the problems
You want staff to understand where the lines are. What is confidential, what commits the organisation, what happens when somebody argues with a customer at eleven at night, and what your social media policy actually means in practice.
This version is closer to risk training than marketing training, and it is usually driven by HR or communications rather than marketing.
Plenty of organisations need both, in which case they work well as a full day, with advocacy in the morning once people already understand the boundaries.
Why is social media training important for employees?
Because your staff are already posting, with or without guidance, and both the upside and the downside sit with the organisation. Employees collectively have far more reach than the brand account, and content from people consistently outperforms content from logos. That is the opportunity.
The risk is the same fact viewed from the other end. One post from one person can create a problem that takes weeks to settle, and a policy nobody has read does not prevent it. Training is the difference between a policy that exists and one that people can actually apply on a Friday afternoon.
What does the training cover?
Where the lines are
Confidentiality, commitments, customers and colleagues. What your policy means translated into situations people recognise.
Personal and professional
Whether staff need separate accounts, what a personal account still says about the employer, and where the law sits.
What is worth posting
Giving people three or four things they can genuinely say, so the ask is not an open ended please post more.
Profiles that stand up
LinkedIn mostly. Photo, headline and about section fixed in the room in twenty minutes.
When it goes wrong
What to do about a bad comment, an angry customer or a mistake already posted. Escalation, not improvisation.
AI and disclosure
Staff are drafting posts with AI. What that means for accuracy and confidentiality. See the AI policy workshop.
Do you write the social media policy as well?
We can, and more often we improve the one you already have. Most policies we read are written to protect the organisation legally and are almost useless as guidance, because they tell people what not to do and nothing about what they can.
The version that works is short, gives real examples, names who to ask when somebody is unsure, and is written in language people will actually finish reading. If policy is the main need rather than training, the facilitated approach we use for AI policy works the same way for social.
How does it run for a large organisation?
| Format | Group size | Best for | Price excluding VAT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private half day | Up to six | A team or department | £1,200 |
| Private full day | Up to six | Advocacy and awareness together | £1,800 |
| Repeated sessions in one visit | Two or three groups | Rolling out across a site | Quoted |
| Awareness briefing | Larger room | Whole staff, policy focused | Quoted |
For anything above a single team, the practical answer is usually a short awareness briefing for everybody plus a proper hands on session for the people who will actually post. Training a hundred people to the same depth is expensive and mostly unnecessary.
Who runs the day?
I am Chris Norton and I run most of these sessions myself. I founded Prohibition, the PR, social and content agency behind this site, I have worked in public relations for more than twenty years, and I have been running training since 2009. I co-authored Share This Too, the social media handbook published by the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.
The awareness sessions draw on crisis work rather than marketing work. When a member of staff creates a problem in public, we are the people organisations ring, which makes the examples on the day considerably more sobering than a generic policy course.
Employee social media training questions we get asked
What is social media training for employees?
Training that helps staff use social media in a way that helps the organisation rather than exposing it. It splits into two types. Advocacy training encourages employees to post about their work confidently. Awareness training sets out boundaries, confidentiality and what to do when something goes wrong. Most employers want one and ask for the other.
Why is social media training important for employees?
Because staff are already posting. Collectively they reach far more people than the brand account and content from individuals outperforms content from logos, so the upside is real. So is the downside, because one post can create weeks of work, and a policy nobody has read prevents nothing.
How much does staff social media training cost?
Half day £1,200 and full day £1,800 for up to six people, excluding VAT. For larger organisations we usually quote a combination of a short awareness briefing for everybody plus hands on sessions for the people who will post.
Can you train our whole workforce?
Yes, but rarely to the same depth, and we will say so. A short awareness briefing for everybody plus proper training for the twenty people who post is better value than a hundred people sitting through a full day.
Do you cover our social media policy?
Yes. We read it beforehand and translate it into situations people recognise. If the policy itself needs rewriting we can facilitate that too.
Is this about stopping people posting?
No, and framing it that way is why most staff training fails. It is about removing the fear that stops good people posting, while being clear about the few things that genuinely matter.
Can employees be disciplined for personal posts?
In some circumstances yes, and that is a question for your HR and legal teams rather than for us. What we do is make sure staff understand where their employer’s interest begins, so the situation arises less often.
What about staff using AI to write posts?
It is now common and mostly unmanaged. We cover accuracy and confidentiality, and there is a facilitated session at the AI policy workshop if you need rules written down.
Do you work with HR teams?
Often. Awareness and policy sessions are usually driven by HR or communications rather than marketing, and the day is built differently when that is the case.
Related training
You are here
Employee social media training. Advocacy, awareness and policy.
LinkedIn for sales teams
Where advocacy turns commercial. See LinkedIn training for sales teams.
Crisis and misinformation
When something is already spreading. See AI misinformation and crisis training.
Tell us which problem you are solving
Half day £1,200, full day £1,800, up to six people, excluding VAT. Larger rollouts quoted.
One of the training levels we run, alongside every social media course. Delivered UK wide or online. Last reviewed August 2026.
