Social Media

Areyoufrank.com:
http://www.areyoufrank.com/pdf/social_media_buzzword_definitions_and_bingo.pdf

Social Media for Business (Vistage):
http://www.vistage.com/media/whitepapers/whitepaperSocialMediaCEOs.pdf

Are You Listening?
http://www.out-smarts.com/2009/07/30/are-you-listening/comment-page-1/#comment-522

Social Media for Business: The Dos & Don’ts of Sharing by Sarah Evans:
http://mashable.com/2009/02/27/social-media-for-business-2/

In the new age of Social Media, all businesses large and small need to protect themselves from many avoidable exposures that can harm their company’s reputation and many even result in long and expensive litigation. We believe that is wise for management to develop, publish and enforce blogging policies that provide guidelines for employees who want to have personal blogs. Here are a few examples of corporate blogging policies and also, my variation.

Suggested Corporate Blogging Policy Inclusions:

• The views expressed in employee personal blog are theirs alone and do not necessarily represent those of their employers.
• Personal blogging must never conflict with the employee’s daily work obligations.
• The employer’s advice on the appropriateness of questionable blog inclusions should always be sought out, IN ADVANCE, of ANY publication.  Information placed on the web lives forever.
• An employer’s confidentiality and proprietary information must ALWAYS be respected.
• Employees must respect when their employer requests that particular subject matter not be shared with anyone and in any place for reasons of confidentiality and/or legality.

Corporate Blogging Policy Examples from Some Better Known Organizations:

YAHOO:
http://jeremy.zawodny.com/yahoo/yahoo-blog-guidelines.pdf
IBM:
http://www.ibm.com/blogs/zz/en/guidelines.html
INTEL:
http://www.intel.com/sites/sitewide/en_US/social-media.htm
CISCO:
http://blogs.cisco.com/news/comments/ciscos_internet_postings_policy/
GARTNER GROUP:
http://blogs.gartner.com/gartner-public-web-participation-guidelines/
NPR:
http://www.npr.org/about/ethics/social_media_guidelines.html
ESPN: (reported):
http://industry.bnet.com/media/10003575/espn-issues-anti-social-media-guidelines/

Related Articles on this Subject Matter:

FORBES:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/30/social-media-guidelines-intelligent-technology-oreilly.html
DONALD SMITH’s BLOG:
http://digitalinnovations.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/corporate-guidelines-for-social-media/
LAUREL PAPWORTH’S BLOB:
http://laurelpapworth.com/enterprise-list-of-40-social-media-staff-guidelines/
MATT LEONARD’S BLOG:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-employees-need-social-media-guidelines/12588/