policy

The Department of Defense (DoD) is set to release a final version of their much anticipated social network policy this year. They deserve kudos for soliciting input in an open, online forum and keeping the public informed of considerations and progress.

DoD utilized several Web Governance best practices in crafting their social media policy. Here’s a few that could be helpful to your organization:

During the discovery phase of WelchmanPierpoint's Web governance consulting engagements, I ask clients to share their policy and standards documents with me. Time and again, I’m handed a document that includes a mixture of policy, standards and guidelines. I see this mixture in online documents as well. In fact, I recently came across several social–media-related documents labeled as policy, guidelines and the like, when in actuality, they were a mixture of document types – or the opposite type of what they purported to be.

One of the challenges around creating social media policy is whether or not it is appropriate to constrain an employee’s social media activities when performed in a professional and personal capacity. There are a few key considerations to talk through when crafting a social media policy: what is unacceptable; what can be prescribed ; and, what can be reasonably enforced?

We seem to be a litigation-happy society these days, but that is hardly news. Except when it seems individuals and companies are being sued for linking from their Web sites, to those of other companies or public institutions, as reported on Slate this week.