Creating a Social Web Policy Guide
There is growing acceptance that small business can benefit from effective use of the social web. Yet, the opportunity presented by the social web is not without risk. There are legitimate concerns surrounding issues such as privacy, errors and omissions, security, and protecting proprietary information. There are also concern surrounding the concepts of transparency and personal vs. company brand.
Some organizations have chosen to avoid the social web altogether by blocking any access and/or have banned use of it at the work place. On the other end of the spectrum, there are companies with very open policies that encourage employee participation in the social web and who have guides that are as simple as “act intelligently” when engaging in the social web. There is no one size fits all. Your company culture and management philosophy will to a large extent determine the detail of your guidelines and the level of the restrictions placed on the behavior of employees using the social web.
It is only good management to deploy a social web policy that clearly lays out what is and isn’t permissible when employees are presenting themselves as representatives of your organization. Many organizations already have guides outlining use of the Internet and email. For these businesses, adding additional guidelines covering use of the social web may suffice.
Before you can write social web guidelines, you will need to decide where your company stands with regard to not only it’s participation, but also where you stand relative to managing and monitoring employee use.
It is not enough to create guidelines, they must also be properly implemented and managed. Management must take the lead – this means management must be a participant, as well as, a suporter. Begin from a position of trust and be sure to provide training.
How has you company approached this issue? Do you have a policy or guide? Please take my poll at the top of the left sidebar.
Photo Credit: flickr cambodia4kidsorg’s
