Social media policies. It’s a frequently-discussed topic on so many of the online discussion groups I follow. The main point of the participants in these discussions seems to be:
How do I keep our employees from saying something online that our organization could be sued for, that could lead to negative press coverage, or could make one of our donors angry?
I have to admit that I find most of the discussions about social media at nonprofits and other mission-based organizations annoying. I’m frustrated to see nonprofit organizations, NGOs, government agencies and other mission-based organizations much more focused on how to avoid upsetting anyone than on how to be bold in pursuit of their missions. Also, I’ve been hearing about this fear since around 1995 or so, and was appalled all those years ago to watch so many organizations wring their hands over this whole cyberspace thing while other organizations embraced it, ran with it and ended up doing amazing things for their clients and communities.
David Meerman Scott has been blogging recently about the conflict between legal staff and communicators when if comes to real-time media. Scott’s blog today links to his recent missives, as well as linking to three company’s staff guidelines to social media activities that he thinks are outstanding (I do too):
- TNT employees Social Media Guidelines
- IBM blogging guidelines and the company’s 3,000 employee bloggers
- US Navy issues one of the first social media guidelines in the government sector
Also see this list of social media policies at six different companies by from BulletProof Blog – though many of these have WAY more legalease than I think is necessary – they come from a place of fear, and that’s never a good place to come from when talking about talking and working with the community.
Why don’t I panic more over what employees and volunteers might be doing online? Because I believe if an organization has a culture where every employee and every volunteer feels responsible for the organization’s reputation, and feels a part of that organization’s success or demise, where moral is high, internal communications are excellent and a sense of team is a way of working, not just a catch phrase for the annual report, that organization has nothing to fear about its staff’s online activities – if an online misstep happens (and it will), that organization will easily recover. For organizations that are oh-so-fearful of online activities: perhaps there’s something else you should be worrying about?
Also see:
Handling an Online Social Media Faux Paux (props to the American Red Cross!)
How to Handle Online Criticism
Evaluating Online Activities: Online Action Should Create & Support Offline Action
Using RSS for Media Monitoring
Social media: cutting both ways since the 1990s
Need a Social Media Policy? Maybe Yes, Maybe No.
Tags: policy, guideline, guidelines, staff, employee, employees, volunteer, volunteers, lawyer, lawyers, legal