Crain's story: Social media policies

[Chuck]

Hey folks,
In the near future I'm going to be doing a story related to companies' social media policies and was hoping a few of you might have some input or could direct me to others who could help. The club was really helpful last time, when I did a story about companies using Twitter, so I figured I'd try again.

Here are some of the core questions the story will address:
Does you company have any policies regarding social media, written or unwritten? If so, what are they? If not, why not? And do you have any incidents that sparked such a policy?

I appreciate any input you folks might have related to what companies' policies should look like, why they should/shouldn't have policies, how open they should be, etc. Most importantly, please tell me if you know of any companies that have adopted such policies or at least considered them. A few examples would be immensely helpful.

I would appreciate any assistance.

Thanks,
Chuck

[Dominic J. Litten]

Whenever social media policies come up, my favorite example is from Intel who came out with their policy in December of 2008.

The reason? They discuss the need for sharing information, transparency and accountability, which are the three pillars of social media. Intel also doesn't discourage employees from using social media, here is my favorite excerpt:

The choice to participate in social media is yours. If you do, please follow these guiding principles:

• Provide unique, individual perspectives on what's going on at Intel and in the world.
• Post meaningful, respectful comments - in other words, no spam and no remarks that are off-topic or offensive.
• Reply to comments quickly, when a response is appropriate.
• Respect proprietary information and confidentiality.
• When disagreeing with others' opinions, keep it cool.
• Know and follow the Intel Code of Conduct and the Intel Privacy Policy

You can read it in its entirety here: http://www.intel.com/sites/sitewide/en_US/social-media.htm

This is in complete contrast to ESPN, who sent out their internal policy a few weeks ago, which was a PR disaster: http://mashable.com/2009/08/05/espn-social-media-policy/

[Mark Szczepanik]

We put a lot of thought into our social media guidelines at Liggett Stashower. Our CEO, Mark Nylander ([e-mail]), will be more than happy to discuss them with you. Let me know if you need more info.

[Lindsey Alexander]

I always find Mashable's tweets helpful. This one talks about using twitter on an executive level: http://mashable.com/2009/06/12/twitter-executives/

[Brady Cohen]

Hi Chuck, I have some insights regarding this based on my experience working for and with several organizations. What is the best way to share with you? Would you prefer to speak by phone?

Brady
216.831.4421 x142