Social Media Guidelines

On Twitter, I saw a post by @TrendTracker (via @Twitter_Tips) about a site where the public can view the social media policies of dozens of companies, nonprofit groups, and government agencies.

It's Social Media Governance's online database of social media policies, to be exact, and it's worth a click or two to see how organizations are striving for transparency while balancing the need to protect proprietary info.

You can see, among others, the American Red Cross's social media policy for employees and for local units; the Canadian Broadcasting Co's Facebook policy; GM's blogger policy; IBM's social computing guidelines; Microsoft's blogging and tweeting guidelines; Roanoke County's social media policy; the US Air Force's new media policy; and Wal-Mart's Twitter discussion guidelines.

It's smart marketing to let employees (and the world) know about social media policies so there are no misunderstandings or miscommunications. This is especially important in light of the new FTC rules, taking effect soon, that material connections must be disclosed if a blogger or tweeter gets paid or gets freebies for promoting or reviewing a product. I hope more organizations, small businesses included, will post their policies for everyone to see.