alexmanchester.com

Telstra unveils social media policy and guidelines

In the wake of the Fake Stephen Conroy story, Telstra has published a brand new, 6-page policy on social media use for employees.

Published on the Now We Are Talking blog in a post by David Quilty (Telstra's head of PR who reportedly, "had a ****ing heart attack" when Telstra employee, Leslie Nassar, was uncovered as the author of the fake Conroy account), the guidelines are, "good, commonsense guardrails...which encourage staff to use social media, but be responsible and respectful in the online communities in which you participate".

The guidelines do make a lot of sense, and clearly explain the modus operandi when mentioning the company in your online posts:

Telstra’s 3 Rs of Social Media Engagement 

3.  Telstra’s 3 Rs of Social Media Engagement are Representation, Responsibility and Respect.  
 
3.1 Telstra’s 3 Rs apply when:

• you are authorised and accredited to represent Telstra on social media platforms and are using a social media platform for business purposes.  Further information is outlined in section 4 below.
• you choose to make references to Telstra, its people, products or services, and/or other business related individuals or organisations when you are using a social media platform in a personal capacity. Further information is outlined in section 5 below.

3.2 Telstra’s Social Media Engagement Policy does not apply to personal use of social media platforms where you make no reference to Telstra related issues.  

Other sections relate to declarations of being a Telstra employee, respecting individuals and a clear statement of process if/when you breach the policy. Fair enough.

The one area where it might all come unstuck is this:

You must complete the Telstra social media accreditation process before you can represent Telstra in social media.

Not only do Telstra have a big job ahead of them to train most, if not all of the workforce (just in case), but this has the potential to be a barrier, i.e. If we don't want you to mention Telstra, then we won't accredit you. It's also a safety net for Telstra if someone hasn't been officially accredited and they mention the company in a negative way - that would count as an immediate breach.

It may not happen, but it could be a chink (or caveat) in what's otherwise a very good reasonable but quite rigid example of a corporate social media policy (the emphasis on training and "accreditation" making it so, upon second reading) (NB: see update below for correction on the point of accreditation).

Keep an eye out for a full article on the topic of social media and guidelines, to be published by Step two later this week. In the meantime, see the Now We Are Talking post, and download the guidelines PDF.

Related blog posts on guidelines and governance:

• Why social media strategy needs to go beyond guidelines
• Social media, marketing, collaboration and intranets at Intel Corp.
• How to moderate a forum
• Governnance and support for SharePoint team sites

Update: Mike Hickinbotham from Telstra has clarified in the comments below that you only need accreditation if you're using social media in your professional capacity for Telstra. If simply in casual reference, then no accreditation is necessary, you're simply asked to follow the 3Rs of "Reputation, Resepect and Responsibility".

With that in mind, this policy does indeed strike a good balance between corporate representation and freedom to comment online.

How to moderate a forum

Laurel Papworth has written a great post on how to moderate a forum. Don't be distracted by the Warcraft overtones, there's some very serious advice here for keeping discussions on track in your organisation's forum or community. Some examples include:

1. ETIQUETTE STATEMENT
needs a whole lot of behavioural statements (play nicely) but the most important ones are:
The Moderators word is final, do not discuss bans or penalties on the forum. If you have a question regarding a penalty, please email the head honcho (usually called the Admin, so they know it's serious)

If you have an issue with another member, please contact a moderator. Do NOT attempt to resolve issues in the public spaces, keep them to Private Messaging or notify a moderator.

DO NOT publish private emails and direct messages. Do NOT publish the private information of another member (home address, telephone number).

6. LOCKED THREADS
First, post on the thread in question before it gets out of hand. You'll learn quickly what the trigger points for your community are. I usually post something like "Some advice - can everyone relook at the Etiquette statement (link to it) before posting on this discussion?" Then they know that you know that they know that they are heading for trouble.

When locking threads, explain why in the last post. "I am locking this thread because in spite of warnings the discussion has not remained civil. Do not reopen this discussion on a new thread. If you have an issue with this, please private message me" Leave it to fall away into the long tail. If you remove threads to the Evidence Locker while the debate is still hot, they will simply reopen the discussion starting with "I don't know what happened to the other discussion, but here it is again..."

In extreme cases - where the majority of the community is up in arms, not just a few trolls (troublemakers) - advise them that the discussion can continue for 48 hours but after that the thread is locked. They will get fed up and members will say "isn't the 48 hours up yet?"

In my experience, decent moderation is of the utmost importance for a busy online community. People behave in ways they wouldn't offline (person to person) and that can be good (open, less shy), and bad (offensive, overbearing etc.). Although the latter is less common in a business environment than it might be on the Web, put a group together to share war stories from business-based forums and it won't be long before you hear of a particularly painful employee (or several).

Just as with live facilitation in a workshop, whether in an online forum, a blog, a webinar or a Second Life meeting hall, it's easy for the topics to veer off track, for comments to be misinterpreted and for disagreements to blow up. If this happens too many times then people quickly lose the motivation to participate and once that's gone, your forum and hard work usually goes with it.

Alex

[Also see a previous Melcrum Social Media Newsletter on this topic]