SOCIAL MEDIA POLICIES & GUIDELINES

With Lisa Colton

What We’ll Cover Today

• The Value of a Policy

• Values Inform Policy

• Building Your Policy Step By Step

3 Obstacles to Social Media Maturity

(You need fertile soil!)

Fear

Allocation of Resources

Get Everyone On The Same Page

EMBRACE THE PROCESSIt can be even more

valuable than thePRODUCT

What Are Your Goals?

What does this policy mean for your organization?

Where Do You Fall On The Spectrum?

Tactical: Spell everything out!

Vision: Strategy doc to help others make decisions!

Legal: lawyers lead the charge

Informal: informal guidelines for staff

For key personnel only Everyone will read and understand

Values Direct Policy

Determine Your Social Media ValuesFrom these values, create guidelines to use when posting…

What are your core values? How do they translate?

Value

Responsiveness

Impartiality

What does this mean for your presence in the social media world?

We will focus on listening to what others are saying in our community and make a priority to respond in a quick and informative manner.

We will not take a stance on political issues in our posts nor offer recommendations that are not grounded in facts.

From Denver Academy of Torah’s Policy

When thinking about the type of content DAT would like to promote, the following are the basic guidelines: • Educate- take advantage of what is available by highlighting

articles, ideas, concepts that represent what we believe is educationally relevant.

• Walk the Talk- the values we teach our students apply to our own online behavior.

• Explore – take risks within reason, take advantage of the almost unlimited online resources.

• Share- show what we are doing and share our students’ successes

• Show- Demonstrate our support and love of Israel. Show our enthusiasm for learning and teaching. Show our consideration and care for our community

Let’s Try It Out: Organizational Values

1. Turn to page 13 to see a list of values to brainstorm.

2. What are your organization’s values (either from this list of otherwise)? Pick 3.

3. Turn to page 14. How will those values be manifest in your social media work? Jot down some notes.

4. Share with the person sitting next to you. Why did you pick those values, and how might it impact your work?

5. Let’s hear a few highlights of what you learned from each other.

Who Should Be Involved?

Who needs to have input into the policy?

Who needs to have buying to the policy?

Who needs to be educated about the policy?

What other policies might need to be referenced?

Who Should Do What?

Communications Strategy Privacy

Customer Service Content Planning

Content Creation/Coordination Content Posting

Monitoring Measurement

Policy / Sensitive Issues Training, Learning

Turn to page 16. Do you know who should be playing each of these roles?

The Davis Academy, Parent Ambassadors

Parents were an important player in their social media policy goals:

1. Knew parents and alumni were key to better engagement.

2. Wanted to set intentional culture.

3. Wanted to model values they expect from students.

4. Needed to teach parents what to do and why it mattered.

What Should You Say?

Make you posts related to your values:

• What is totally within bounds?

• When is it okay to post outside of your guidelines?

What Should You NOT Say?

What requires approval to post?

What is taboo?

From Westchester Day School’s policy:

“Never post real-time location information about WDS students online.”

“In an emergency or crisis, do not share information related to WDS via social media; if WDS needs to communicate via social media, an administrator will do so.”

Responding to Positive (and Neutral) Things

When do you respond?

Who should respond?

What do you say?

What are the implications? How is this connected to your brand?

From Denver Academy of Torah:“We also will do our upmost to respond to most comments/responses within 48 hours. When appropriate we will respond with phone calls.”

And…What Does It Mean To “Respond”?

Responding To Negative Things

Consider the actual damage that will be done

Should you limit or moderate discussion within your community?

Will hurtful comments damage your community?

Where might people say these things instead?

Will it let you show how responsive you are?

From Denver Academy of Torah:“We welcome the opportunity to have discourse and engage with our community. As such, healthy conversations and potential disagreements can be productive and stimulating. Disparaging or personal comments will not be tolerated. Take conversations offline that require further discussion or are personal in nature. We reserve the right to delete in appropriate comments. Be open, responsive, professional and positive.”

Guidelines For Your Community

Privacy IssuesWhat are your potential privacy issues?• Faces?• Names?• Ages?

• What can you post?• What can you only

post with permission from those included?

• What can you never post?

• What should you keep private? Please refer to your organization’s privacy policy

for more details, and include or reference as appropriate in your social media policy.

Personal vs. Professional: Posting

What is NOT okay to post in each circumstance?• Posting as the organization

on organizational account

• Posting as individual on organizational account

• Posting as an individual on individual account

Personal vs. Professional: Relationships

Can staff befriend: • Board Members• Volunteers• Coworkers• Parents• Teachers• Case Workers• Children

From Charles E Smith Jewish Day School (sample of language used):

Employees are expected to exercise prudence in creating their online networks in social media. Because of the widespread use of Facebook and the opportunities it provides for providing access to an employee’s personal information and postings, the School has established the following provisions for establishing social media relationships (“friending”) students, alumni, parents, and other members of the professional community.

• Employees may not initiate or accept friend or contact requests from current students of any age or former students under the age of 18…

• Employees are discouraged from “friending” parents of current or prospective students, due to the inherent conflicts of interest that this may raise …

• Employees are asked to use good judgment when making or accepting “friend” (or “connection”) requests to or from School colleagues…

• The School encourages employees to remind all other members of their networks of their positions as educators whose profiles may be accessed by students and other members of the School community… 

Personal vs. Professional: Relationships

What happens at your organization?

What’s your personal line?

What’s comfortable or uncomfortable?

Download Additional Copies of the Social Media Policy WorkbookFor Jewish Organizations

http://www.darimonline.org/smpw

• 10 topics• Sample language• Exercises

http://www.darimonline.org/smpw

Questions?Experience to Share?

Thank You!