image courtesy of matthamm

As an online community manager, I long ago came to terms with the fact that my personal life and professional life will overlap. The tools that many of us use in our personal lives (such as Facebook and Twitter), I also use in my professional life. You can try to keep your personal and professional worlds separated, but that only goes so far. There is inevitable overlap — your co-workers will friend you on Facebook, your community members will find your Twitter, and your boss will look you up on LinkedIn. 

Perhaps community managers just faced this problem earlier than most people. After all, we were using these tools for business long before everyone else. However, now it’s become more common for people to mix the business with the personal on social media. Companies are starting to see all of their employees as potential spokespeople — with all the positive and negative things that come along with that. Companies can choose to focus on the positive benefits of that, or to focus on the negative implications. Both are inherently there, it’s just a difference in point of view. Think of it as “glass half full” vs. “glass half empty”.

Two things happened last week to drive this point home to me. First, I was on a panel at Community 2.0 with Kelly Ripley Feller from Intel, who shared Intel’s social media guidelines for their employees. Second, I read an article on Mashable about the Wall Street Journal’s new social media policy. To me, the difference between the two is striking. And the first indication of how they differ is right there in the name — guidelines vs. policy. Guidelines are the bumpers on the side of the road — you have a wide road to go down, but the guidelines will nudge you back on track when you stray. Policies are hard lines that must not be crossed.

Intel’s Guidelines

Intel’s guidelines come from the position of assuming that their employees will participate, and encouraging that, but wanting to provide some ground rules and best practices for doing so. In other words, Intel is focused on how employees participating in community and social media can help the company, and how to equip them with the best knowledge and practices for doing so.

Many of Intel’s policies are straightforward and should be obvious — respecting proprietary and confidential information, not spamming or posting offensive remarks, for example. But there are other guidelines that are maybe not as expected from a large public corporation. 

“Be Transparent” is probably not something you’d expect to hear from Intel. Of course, this is not to say that employees are encouraged to disclose company secrets… but they are expected to use their real name, identify that they work at Intel, and be clear about their role. 

“It’s a Conversation” is another guideline that a lot of companies could learn from. Intel encourages people to show their individual personalities, to encourage comments, and talk to readers like they are talking to real people. So many companies have their blogs and social media participation incredibly sanitized, approved, and PR-ified. Intel gets that showing the personalities inside the company is showing off some of their best differentiating assets.

Other guidelines, such as adding value and creating excitement, are also something you don’t see in most policies. But they’re really important parts of an open and engaging social media program.

Wall Street Journal’s Policy

WSJ’s policies come from a place of grudgingly accepting that their employees are going to participate in social media, and wanting to protect themselves against anything bad that might happen. They are not interested in helping their reporters and editors be more engaged in social media with best practices. They simply provide guidance on what not to do — unlike Intel, there’s no corresponding “what to do” advice.

Again, some of the things included are obvious. Most people know not to use a false name or to recruit friends and family to promote or defend their work. But there are other guidelines here that seem… well, antiquated. 

Reporters and editors are not allowed to discuss how an article was reported, written or edited. They cannot discuss articles that have not been published, meetings they’ve attended or plan to attend, or interviews they’ve conducted. They are not to mix “business and pleasure” on sites like Twitter. I can understand needing to protect proprietary information about workflow and competitive information such as sources and upcoming articles. But surely that can be done in a way that doesn’t forbid all communication about it across the board. By flatly disallowing all conversations about these items, the WSJ is missing huge opportunities for their reporters and editors to connect with their readers, and for their readers to make deeper connections to their reporters, editors, and the WSJ brand.

In terms of mixing business and pleasure on Twitter… well, frankly, that’s one of the things that I like best about Twitter. Celebrities and other well-known figures (if they’re doing it right, and doing it themselves) mix professional and personal posts that give their readers some insight into the personality and real life of the poster. For example, I know that:

•  Sarah Haskins (from Current TV) saw the new Star Trek movie. 
• Ana Marie Cox (founder of Wonkette, currently on Air America a lot) just bought a whole trunk full of plants for her yard. 
• Adam Savage (from Mythbusters) had cookies for lunch. 
• Rachel Maddow’s (from MSNBC) mother-in-law got a new TV, and her sister-in-law has a great sense of humor. 

I could continue on and on with examples. The point is that none of these posts would pose a threat to the companies they work for. And they all give me, the reader, some behind-the-scenes info on them as people. Rightly or wrongly, I feel that I know them better because I have this information. This makes me feel more connected to them on a personal level. And having employees/celebrities with large fan bases is a boon to any company that employs that person.

What You Can Do

Does your company have a social media policy? I don’t think it’s a must for every company, but it is necessary for many. If you don’t, and you think you need one, make sure that it encourages and guides people to participate in positive ways instead of just telling people what they can’t do. If you don’t have any community or social media experts in your company, there are plenty of independent consultants in the field that can help you draft good policies. Think about how to empower your employees to show their personalities, be thought leaders and subject matter experts, and create positive experiences around themselves and the company’s brand. 

If you have a policy that is more closed than open, talk to your company’s social media expert (or your boss/executive, if you are the company’s expert) to make some changes. You know your own situation and restrictions best, but take every opportunity to educate and train your people on the best practices for contribution, instead of just giving them a list of things they can’t do. 

What policies are in place in your company that you love or hate? Know of other companies with particularly good or bad guidelines and policies around social media participation? Let me know in the comments.