Social Media: You Need a Policy NowSocial Media: You Need a Policy Now

Social media policies will depend on the business size & industry, perceived risk of social media use, compliance requirements, and even the culture of the business.

Social media has been a part of many people's private lives but not always a part of their business lives—but this is changing. A growing number of tools are emerging to help the business manage their social media efforts. Social media within the business may include Yammer (recently acquired by Microsoft), Jive or salesforce.com’s Chatter to enhance employee collaboration. Externally there are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Social media needs to managed in the enterprise. The goal of this blog is to consider the business and policy implications of social media.

"Social Media for Grownups" is the first article in a new digital publication from The BrainYard, a sister website to No Jitter. The article focuses on several elements relating to social media. One area covered is the development of policies for governing the use of social media. The policy will affect both the internal and external use of social media. It is important that whatever policy is generated, the policy be approved by non-IT departments such as HR, legal, marketing, product/service development and others.

Part of the BrainYard article included a survey asking about how many companies have a social media policy; this question was repeated in surveys from 2010 and 2012. Just 25% of those surveyed have no social media policy in 2012, down from 43% in 2010. I think there will be another major decrease in the number of businesses without a policy when the survey is conducted again.

Social media policies will depend on the business size, the perception of risk of social media use, the business's industry, regulatory compliance requirements, and even the culture of the business management. "A Social Media Policy Template" is proposed in The BrainYard article as a set of 17 principles to follow when developing the policy:

* Social media is being social but remember that it is necessary to be safe and legal.
* Negative comments have a way of exploding across the Internet and internal networks. Be positive.
* Do not misrepresent who you are when posting.
* If you choose to share comments about the business, its customers, and vendors with friends and family, that doesn't mean it won't reach a public audience.
* You are responsible for what you post.
* You should be careful sharing copyrighted information and conforming to fair-use laws. You may believe it is OK, but check first.
* Think about what you want to post. Do not be impulsive. You may regret it later. You could even lose your job.
* Never post any of the business's proprietary information.
* The main purpose of using social media is to improve the business operation internally and externally by offering relevant content, sharing links and information.

Do not expect that the social media policy will be easy to produce. There will be comments and objections from all over the business. It will be revised many times. There will probably be generational issues to resolve, older management vs. younger employees who use social media extensively.

The policy should be a living document. Any policy has to be in use to determine if it is valid and useful. The policy should be revisited at least once a year as the use of social media generates new ways to apply social media.

The use of social media should be actively managed. It is not a stationary, stable environment. Learning to use social media is an ongoing process. The policy is also an ongoing process.

IBM has been forward thinking about social media, with 300,000 on LinkedIn and about 200,000 on Facebook. IBM has published "IBM Social Computing Guidelines: Blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds and social media" which is well worth the read. The last item in the guidelines is, "Don't forget your day job. You should make sure that your online activities do not interfere with your job or commitments to customers." This is important to remember because social media for some people can become addictive while others find it a distraction from productive work. It can even become counterproductive.