Over the past few months, I have been researching employee social media use policies. This post is the prologue to a series of posts to share that research. Hopefully, the information I provide will be helpful, but I also hope that you will provide feedback and guidance. What have you experienced? What should be in a policy?
As stated above, the information found in this series is adapted from research and materials prepared by myself and my colleagues Scott Primeua and Heather Garmeson. Special thanks for their assistance.
The why “an organization needs a social media use policy” issue is important, but I am not going to cover that topic. Afterall the topic has been addressed by Jay Jaffe here, Law.com here and here, Beth Kanter here, Doug Cornilious here, among many others. Lets just say that a social media use policy is important to your organization.
Of course, it is always important to keep in mind that the social media policy addresses what employees have always done – talk to other people about their jobs and personal lives. The only thing that has changed is that employees now have more tools to reach wider audiences. Thus, before implementing a social media policy, the views and opinions of the employees of an organization should be considered in order to build a consensus regarding the use of the Web and social media tools.
In researching these posts, I have accumulated a number of resources. Of course, I will link to a number of these resources in each post. Those and other useful link will also be accumulated on the social media policy resources page on this blog. In addition, the materials you will read will form the basis for a white paper I am drafting to address social media policies and employee use. Your comments and resources will help me build a better work product. (Of course, I will attribute any information to the contributors). So thank you in advance!
In that spirits, I’d like to acknowledge my colleagues Scott Primeua, Heather Garmeson, and Keith Whitelaw for their feedback and assistance with the materials presented in this series.
Cross post for my blog at http://sleepisoptional.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/prologue-social-media-policy-series/
Perfect. What a great resource. Lots of government agencies are figuring this out right now so this is another perfect way we can learn from each other. Ready to listen.