Social Media Policy Workshop – Grand Haven Chamber

Social Media (SoMe) Policies are NOT One-Size-Fits-All

This hands-on session was originally developed for use with member of the Grand Haven, Spring Lake and Ferrysburg Chamber of Commerce.  We reviewed policies from a variety of organizations and discovered what would work and possibly not work for individual member organizations.

• Your SoMe policy should reinforce existing corporate structure and policy or existing corporate structure and guidelines should be altered to not contridict your SoMe policy.
• SoMe policies not only provide governance, but also and exercise in understanding how social media could impact your organization.
• Organizations should leverage internal resources in the development of their policies
  • Many stakeholders in your organization may have more insight than the people writing the policy
  • Many stakeholders may consider themselves “experts” at social media but have minimal ability to understand how social media will really impact the organization

Types of Social Media Policies

• Public usage of organizational-provided social media tools
  Example – Mayo Clinic
  Example – Cleveland Clinic 
• Employee use of social media
  Example – Associated Press
  Example – Mayo Clinic
  
  • Personal social media use on organization’s time
  • Personal use of social media for or about organization
• Organization’s guidelines for using social media
  Example – North Carolina
  Example – The Coca-Cola Company

Providing Governance

• Technology solutions
• Peer review
• Open solutions (hope for the best)

Social Media Policy Template 

Social Media Policy Template March 2013 Version B

Feature image for this article used by permission of ePublicist