Enterprise: List of 40 Social Media Staff Guidelines

Managing staff who participate in social networks.

This list also includes policies called; Staff blogging policies, enterprise social network guidelines, Employee Blogging Policies, Staff engagement in online communities, and so on. I’ve done a few press (radio, print) interviews this week re: Telstra so I thought I should have another look at how Enterprise, Government, Corporates, Not for Profits  are handling the fact that their staff are members of social networks too.

I once had to step in to calm down a forum that was off the charts with negativity and general unpleasant comments. To be even heard, I started to IP and MAC address ban anyone who posted under secondary IDs for the purpose of trolling (making up a temporary persona who’s only purpose is to create negative comments). I shouldn’t have been surprised – victim number one was the entire Customer Service department. Yep, they had been using their CSR PCs to create secondary accounts to attack members – customers – who were criticising them on their official, primary, Customer Service profiles. No-one got reinstated until we had “the talk”. Kinda cool that companies are now posting internal policies publicly. Not surprising – it goes a long way to protect the company from fallout if/when staff do ignore the social media guidelines in place.

Anyway, you could just read ONE – IBM’s (love the “don’t forget your day job”) OR you can read all these: (download PR Crisis Comms social media courseware)

Behavioural and Etiquette Guidelines for Organisation

• Electronic Frontier Foundation How to Blog Safely about Work http://www.eff.org/wp/blog-safely
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation http://www.insidethecbc.com/bloggingrules interesting because this version caused World War III
• Opera http://my.opera.com/community/blogs/corp-policy/
• Harvard Law School Blogs Terms of Use  http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/terms-of-use/
• Sun Guidelines on Public Discourse http://www.sun.com/communities/guidelines.jsp (original from 2005 elsewhere) Also http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/blogs/BloggingGuidelines.pdf
• GM Motors Blogging Policies http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/about.html
• Media companies: For Journalists entering into public debate http://rhetorica.net/policy.htm
• IOC Olympic Athletes Blogging Policy http://multimedia.olympic.org/pdf/en_report_1296.pdf (PDF)
• BBC Staff Editorial Guidelines Personal use of Social Networking and other third party websites  http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/advice/personalweb/blogging.shtml
• Cisco’s Internet Postings Policy http://blogs.cisco.com/news/comments/ciscos_internet_postings_policy/
• IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines  http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html
• Dell’s Online Communication Policy http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/policy/en/policy?c=us&l=en&s=corp&~section=019
• Yahoo’s Personal Blog Guidelines for staff http://jeremy.zawodny.com/yahoo/yahoo-blog-guidelines.pdf
• Intel Social Media Guidelines http://www.intel.com/sites/sitewide/en_US/social-media.htm
• Greteman Group Blog Social Media Policy http://gretemangroup.com/blog/index.php/2009/01/social-media-policy/

It’s worth looking at the US Airforce one seperately, if just for the pictures alone.

• United States Airforce “new media and the airforce”  http://www.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-090406-036.pdf is a PDF

Enemy Media? ^.^
I thought I blogged this chart before? Drat the internal search

• US Navy very formal PDF http://www.doncio.navy.mil/PolicyView.aspx?ID=789 click through » Download PDF
• DePaul University http://brandresources.depaul.edu/vendor_guidelines/g_socialmedia.aspx
• Hewlett Packard Blogging Code of Conduct http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/blogs/codeofconduct.html
• Chartered Institute of Public Relations Social Media Guidelines http://www.cipr.co.uk/socialmedia/
• Hill and Knowlton’s Public Relations Pledge for Bloggers http://armadgeddon.blogspot.com/2007/09/h-pledge-for-bloggers.html
• Feedster’s Corporate Blogging Policy http://feedster.blogs.com/corporate/2005/03/corporate_blogg.html
• UK Public Service I Am A Civil Servant if it doesn’t work, try the copy on my old blog post.   - http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/about/work/codes/participation-online.aspx
• Gartner’s PUBLIC WEB PARTICIPATION GUIDELINES http://blogs.gartner.com/gartner-public-web-participation-guidelines/.
• Thomas Nelson Blogging Policy http://michaelhyatt.blogs.com/workingsmart/2005/03/corporate_blogg_1.html
• Plaxo’s Communication (Blogging) Policies http://blog.plaxoed.com/2005/03/29/plaxos-communication-policy/
• About.com generic ones http://humanresources.about.com/od/policysamplesb/a/blogging_policy.htm
• LiveWorld Social Media Content Guidelines http://socialvoice.liveworld.com/blog-entry/Bryan-Persons-Blog/Creating-Social-Media/1100000608
• The Blogging Church http://www.leaveitbehind.com/home/2005/04/fellowship_chur.html
• Walker Art New Media Initiatives wiki http://newmedia.walkerart.org/nmiwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WalkerBlogGuidelines

AUSTRALIAN

• Powerhouse Museum official blog policy with the wonderful Seb Chan  Download as a PDF
• Telstra 3Rs GuardRails http://www.nowwearetalking.com.au/library/pdf/news/social-media-company-policy_final_150409.pdf
• Sensis mentioned some, don’t have a link yet
• Australian Public Service (Gov) protocols for online media participation  http://www.apsc.gov.au/circulars/circular088.htm and I think I blogged about the wiki they were doing for social media engagement – did it include staff?
• LonelyPlanet have them, not public yet.
• New Zealand Government Principles for interaction with Social Media  http://www.ssc.govt.nz/display/document.asp?DocID=7160 and ParticipatoNZ wiki http://www.e.govt.nz/policy/participation/guide-to-online-participation.html
• YOU? Do you have internal guidelines available to the public????

Other lists: Christyweb, Beth Kantor, LGEO Research,

It’s worth, while working your way through these links not to just look at the usual topics

Topics covered in Social Media Policies

• defamation, anti competitor, inaccuracies, disclosure, proprietary information, company secrets and IP, wasting time, inappropriate behaviour, rudeness, revealing personal information and so on
• Look for the unusual
  eMail Forwards
  Jokes, urban legends and get-rich email forwards are the oldest form of Internet-based social media. When it comes to company email, we ask that you think twice before hitting send and be judicious with the number of items you forward. And, if you’re unsure whether the Prince of Nairobi really is being truthful about a promised fortune, a quick stop by Snopes.com might be in order. (Gretemangroup)

also look at

Fundamentals of Social Media Policies

• is the policy collaborative – telling staff what they can and can’t do in their own time might require some discussion?
• Is the policy positive teaching engagement in a satisfying way between staff and customers or is it negative with a bunch of Thou Shalt Not Post Pictures on Facebook During Your LunchBreak? Tone IS important – is it fun to read, informative and everyday speech? Do you engage with your staff as you would with customers on a blog – authentic personal respectful voice?
• Is it truly public and does it serve the staff or the company. For example, if I trashtalk Widget company, a community member might point out I am a competitor and then send me to my own companies public guidelines. Yes, that does happen.
• Does the policy extend to contractors? Pilots who fly the senior people around, can’t trashtalk them on the pilots forum. The advertising agency can’t post up a viral video of how their ex customer is a dick because they didn’t get their pitch? (both have happened, I have the screenshots, heh)>
• Are the guidelines, now public, under creative commons so other companies can use them and help provide a fully informed educated ecosystem community?
• Look at all the different names for basically one document? o.O Email Policies becomes Social Media Policies, no?
• Check out how different industries – tech, education, military, government, art, public affairs – are prioritizing their guidelines. What is included, what is top of the list, how does it change?

That should keep you busy for a while…

The reason why I have the full link here, is because I print it up and hand it out with courseware in the Social Media Policies For Your Organisation workshops that I run If you want to do the same, please attribute me ‘n the other aggregators. Thanks

There’s not quite 40 Guidelines here. I guessed 40 cos I know that some of you will have others. I’m particularly looking for Australian social media guidelines for staff.

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