There was an interesting debate recently around whether or not organisations need social media policies. Shel Holtz neatly summarised the argument saying, ‘Yes, you do need one, although it needn't be draconian’.
But just having a policy isn’t enough these days, and that’s why pro-active organisations are going further, introducing social media education and accreditation programs for employees.
Education as to the reasons for doing or not doing something, is usually more effective than a few written rules, and can also help avert supremely naïve events such as the one that came to light this weekend about an Israeli soldier posting his workload on Facebook. From Gizmodo:
"A raid on suspected militants in the West Bank was cancelled yesterday after an Israeli soldier updated his Facebook status to read “On Wednesday we clean up Qatanah, and on Thursday, god willing, we come home.” The solider has since, unsurprisingly, been relieved of combat duty for being a moron. He’ll also spend 10 days in prison for his update."
It beggars belief that anyone, especially someone who handles an assault rifle for work, can do something like that, but they have.
It's also oddly coincidental to see it happen a week after the US military's position on social media was redefined last week, and me saying:
"It sets an interesting example for businesses, i.e. 'Sure, use these tools if you see fit, it's about time we recognised their potential. But sure as hell don't tweet your mission location and target to the public'."
D'oh.
A few years ago when blogs were exploding in popularity, it used to be an interesting point in a workshop to ask people, ‘Is someone from your organisation blogging about your business without you knowing?’ After a search on Google and then Technorati (remember that site?), sometimes, if it was a relatively large organisation, the answer would be ‘Yes’, but it wasn’t the norm.Now, with publishing to the web being so easy, so quick, and so frequent (50 million Tweets a day, 175 million people using Facebook per day, remember), it’s almost guaranteed that there’ll be employees attaching your organisation’s name to some kind of unoffical online content, whether it’s on a Linked In profile, a Facebook page, a status update, or even a good old fashioned blog.
Organisations don’t really have a choice in this matter, and usually it’s not a bad thing either; people can be proud of where they work, enjoy being part of a specific group or community at work, enjoy sharing their thoughts relating to their field of work, and lots more, and that’s all good.
But organisations must figure out what is and isn’t acceptable to them, and make those boundaries very clear to employees, for their sake and for the business’s. If your organisation hasn’t done this, it’s already behind a lot of others, and miles behind where it needs to be.
So, get thinking about a social media policy, and how to effectively communicate and educate on that policy (the Israeli Defence force is now using Facebook style posters (pictured right, read more here) - which isn't a bad idea given the cirumstances). If not, it’s just a matter of time until an employee broadcasts something and those 'fears of your senior executives' suddenly become an impenetrable barrier for your social media plans.
