Samples make social media policies easier to create

October 30, 7:57 PMIndianapolis Nonprofit Business ExaminerCindy Dashnaw

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Looking for sample social media policies?

Chris Boudreaux created Social Media Governance to help organizations get the most out of social media. One of the most helpful things he’s done is provide a list of links to actual social media policies.

Use these to help your non-profit develop or evaluate its own policy. To get an idea of what you’ll see:

The Cleveland Clinic is aimed at external users, referring employees to its Media and Social Networking Policy posted on its intranet site.

The Easter Seals online community guide is brief and basic: Be respectful, stay on topic, and we reserve the right to delete your comment. 

Hill and Knowlton has blogging guidelines and policies for its employees. Besides the basic cautions, it encourages employees to link, link, link. “The web is all about links. When you find something interesting and relevant, link to it. You’ll be helping your readers, and you’ll generate links back to your blog.”

If you need help persuading your CEO that employees can be trusted to blog or tweet about your organization, show him or her the IBM case study on slideshare titled “The Impact of Corporate Culture on Social Media.”  It encourages trust in employees and experimentation, which necessitates learning from (and allowing!) mistakes.

The Mayo Clinic has policies for employees  with a statement I found interesting: “If your blog, posting or other online activities are inconsistent with or would negatively impact Mayo Clinic’s reputation or brand, you should not refer to Mayo Clinic, or identify your connection to Mayo Clinic.”

So, the organization doesn’t outright prohibit employees from being critical. They just can’t identify themselves as employees – sort of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach. But can one still be anonymous on the Internet?

In contrast, Microsoft doesn’t require anonymous postings or tweets when criticizing – just the opposite. “If you plan to tweet about any professional matters … whenever possible use the service’s profile or contact information to assert that you are a Microsoft employee.” Does that mean you can tweet negatively about Microsoft? The company’s Blogging FAQ seems to allow it, with this caveat: “Using your public blog to gratuitously trash Microsoft, our products, partners or competitors reflects poorly on all of us.”

Do you have a social media policy you’re willing to share? You can add it to Boudreaux’s list, or share it here in our comments.