Last updated: 13 January 2010

A STRATEGIC APPROACH TO SOCIAL LEARNING
Social Media Policies and Guidelines

Individuals use social media tools in three main areas: 

1. for personal use - for interacting with friends and for dealing with personal content

2. for  professional use - for interacting with colleagues and for dealing with professional content

3. for organisational use - when working on behalf of their business (or other organisation) and dealing with organisational content

It is often when these activities overlap that there are issues for the individual and the organisation - with concerns about data privacy and security - and possibly dismissal, e.g.

• 30 ways to lose a job on Twitter, ResumeBear, 10 April 2009

• Facebook fired: 8% of US companies have sacked social media miscreants, 10 August 2009

Do you need a social media policy?

It is clear the organisational use of social media tools needs to be clearly considered, so does your organisation need a social media policy or just educate your people about using social media tools responsibly for  professional and organisation use? 

It is often said that people are more comfortable if they know the rules, others prefer a more hands-off approach. Take a look at some of these articles:

• Implement social media guidelines now, Dan Schawbel, PR 2.0, 11 September 2009

• Do you need a corporate social media policy? Janet Fouts, 29 June 2009

• A corporate guide for social media, Joshua-Michele Ross, Forbes.com. 1 July 209

Here are some examples of general social media guidelines

• BT Social Media Guidelines, March 2009

• Chartered Institute of Public Relations Social Media Guidelines

• IBM Social Computing Guidelines

• Red Cross Social Media Strategy/Policy Handbook

• SAP Social Media Guidelines 2009, Timo Elliott, Social Media Today, 10 July 2009

• Social Media Guidelines for schools, Thinking Machine, July 2009

Here is an example of guidelines for specific tools

• How to write a corporate Twitter strategy, Neil Williams, Mission Creep, 21 July 2009

Jonathan Hewitt (hackademic, 26 June 2009) has a corporate Twitter policy that has the extra added benefit of being itself twitterable:

"Our Twitter policy: Be professional, kind, discreet, authentic. Represent us well. Remember that you can’t control it once you hit 'update.' "

For a list of over 40 social media guidelines, take a look at this article

• Enterprise social media usage policies and guidelines, Laurel Papworth, Social Computing, 1 May 2009

Reading List: Social media and learning reading list