Archive for the ‘Policies’ Category

Steven Anderson offers a quick tutorial for to How to Create Social Media Guidelines for Your School. Each of these seven steps walks you through the process of creating effective guidelines for your organization including great resource lists and questions for reflection along the way. Here are the first five steps in the process:

• 1. Examine Your School Culture
• 2. Organize a Team
• 3. Research Phase
• 4. Draft Your Document and Incorporate Feedback
• 5. Make Sure the School Attorney and School Board See the Draft

Jennifer Amanda Jones at the Social Media Examiner offers 10 Tips for Creating a Social Media Policy for Your Business, each of which could be implemented by libraries. It’s becoming increasingly important for libraries and other organizations to create effective social media policies that protect, guide, and empower staff. This article provides helpful tips to do just that:

• #1: Gather Your Team
• #2: Focus on Creating Culture
• #3: Consider Legal Ramifications, Including the National Labor Relations Review Board (NLRB)
• #4: Separate Overall Policies from Site-Specific Guidelines
• #5: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel
• #6: Include External Regulations
• #7: Create Two Policies
• #8: Emphasize Education
• #9: Ask a Lawyer to Review the Policy
• #10: Don’t Let it Collect Dust

Reynol Junco, Associate Professor at Lock Haven University writes for Educause Review about The Need for Student Social Media Policies. This timely article addresses the positives and negatives of social media, cyberbullying, and the policy development process.

“Today we live in the time of the social web, an interactive, engaging, and democratizing space where social capital—the resources obtained through interpersonal interactions—is of great importance. Alongside the expansion of the social web came a generation of students who have never known life without the technologies that many of us have come to depend on. Although there are significant within-group exceptions related to socioeconomic status and ethnic background, today’s traditional-aged students are more comfortable than any other generation in history with expanding their lives by living in both physical and digital spaces.”

What do you think about the idea of student social media policies? Please share your opinions in the comments!

Matt Silverman at Mashable discusses How to: Define a Social Media Strategy for Enterprise. He brings up some great points about how to deal with social media across multiple departments and offices. These tips are especially useful for larger organizations, including libraries, which struggle with how to present a cohesive brand identity while still giving everyone a voice. Here are his major points:

• The Social Challenges of Brand Segmentation
• Empower Everyone
• Make Guidelines Clear, and Make Them Public
• Keeping Your Big Brand Personal

Cindy King at the Social Media Examiner writes about How to Create Social Media Business Guidelines. This excellent article provides a quick primer for creating social media policies and guidelines as a framework for carrying out your organization’s social media strategy. The guide is divided into the following sections:

• Advantages of Social Media Guidelines
• Models to Follow
• Social Media Guidelines for Employees
• Guidelines for Your Social Media Team
• Guidelines for Crisis Management
• Editorial Guidelines for Specific Social Media Platforms
• Social Media Guidelines for Big Companies
• Social Media Guidelines Adapted to Small Companies
• Find the Right Social Media Guidelines for Your Business