My presentation on Social Media Policies for the AfriTech Summit Kenya recently held in Nairobi http://www.afri-tech.com. More Social Media Marketing news, articles and presentations are available at Global Search Interactive's blog http://www.globalsearchinteractive.net
Massimo Burgio Social Media Policy AfriTech Kenya Summit Nairobi
1. social media policies
ethics + codes of conduct
social media don’ts
massimo burgio
global search interactive
www.globalsearchinteractive.net
SEMPO board of directors
nairobi, kenya 16 june, 2011 www.sempo.org
2. who is massimo burgio?
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7. how to get your account disabled on facebook
• Not being human / using a fake name
8. how to get your account disabled on facebook
• Personal profile to promote a business or organization
9. how to get your account disabled on facebook
• Posting copyrighted material
• Importing too many RSS feeds to Facebook notes
10. how to get your account disabled on facebook
• Promoting business on walls / pages / groups
11. how to get your account disabled on facebook
• Scraping information off Facebook
12. how to get your account disabled on facebook
• Getting reported as
abusive by other users
13. how to get your account disabled on facebook
• Starting hate or
obscene groups
14. how to get your account disabled on facebook
• Adding too many
friends at once
• Joining too many
groups
15. how to get your account disabled on facebook
• Post the same
message on too
many walls
• Sending out identical
personal messages
to several friends
• Placing too many
links (promotional or
not) on posts or
messages
• Sending too many
pokes at once
16. how to be a spammer on facebook ads
• Keep placing Facebook ads that
have been refused
• Promoting spammy apps
• Adult content, profanity, vulgarity, obscenity
• Promoting illegal activities
• Promoting liquor, beer, wine, tobacco, firearms,
gambling
• Defamatory or hate content / pages / groups
• Religious fundamentalist content
• political content for commercial use
• Use of webcams/surveillance equipment for non
legitimate use
• Online non accredited educational institutions
that offer degrees
• Promoting content that requires credit card
application
17. what if your company social media accounts gets disabled and
you lose all your
investment ?
18. it’s time to start thinking about getting a
social media
policy
19. why you need a social media policy
• New collaborative scenario
changes the way you
connect and work
• Emerging technologies
change quality of work and
type of feedback
• Users look for a frank
conversation, not a
commercial push
• Opportunity to learn from
your customers
20. why you need a social media policy
• Your employees face this
landscape as brand
representatives and online
customer care team, but
cannot offer a prompt
pre-set feedback to each
request/approach.
• Communication must be
fluid, but your employees
need guidelines.
21. why you need a social media policy
• To protect your company
and your brand
• To protect your employees
• To protect your audience
22. your social media policy should apply to
• Social networks,
blogs, forums, wikis
• Privacy, data protection,
copyright
• At work but also at home
• Your web team /
all your employees
• Your business partners and
ecosystem
24. top corporate social media policies
• IBM Social Computing Guidelines
• Intel Social Media Guidelines
• Kodak Social Media Guidelines
• New York City Social and Public Media Policy
• RightNow Social Media Rules of Engagement
• Coca-Cola Social Media Principles
• Oracle Social Media Participation Policy
• Sun Guidelines on Public Discourse
• Massachussets Government Web Communication Policies
• UK Cabinet Office Digital Engagement Guidelines
• BBC Staff Editorial Guidelines Personal Use of Social Networking and Other 3° party sites
• Electronic Frontier Foundation How to Blog Safely about Work
• Dell’s Online Communication Policy
• IOC Olympic Athletes Blogging Policy
• Yahoo’s Personal Blog Guidelines for staff
• ...
25. inspiration: one-liner corporate policies
Be nice,
Be honest,
Don't release proprietary info.
Be real and use your best judgement.
Comply to all security policies.
Don’t be stupid.
26. inspiration: bloggers’ code of conduct
• Responsibility for our own words
• Nothing we wouldn't say in person
• Connect privately first
• Take action against attacks
• No anonymous or pseudonymous
comments
• Ignore the trolls
• Encourage enforcement of terms
of service
• Keep our sources private
• Discretion to delete comments
• Think twice - post once
27. inspiration: blog user etiquette (dont’s)
• Don’t comment on blogs using
pseudonyms or as anonymous user,
try to give an identity to your online
contributions.
• Don’t use blog comments for link
building It’s useless, as most blog
comments are nofollow, and it’s still
perceived as spam.
• Don’t use content from other blogs or
site without giving source attribution. It
could be a copyright violation and, even
in case of Creative Commons, it’s a good
practice attributing/linking to the source.
28. inspiration: blog user etiquette (dont’s)
• Don’t ask bloggers for link exchange,
there are more natural ways to build
link popularity in the blogosphere.
• Don’t use a blog to crusade against
somebody. Even if this is your goal, it’s
always better to have a blog in favor of
the opposite you want to fight, rather
than having a blog with a negative
approach on a topic or person.
• Don’t forget the ethical code of
bloggers (bloggers’ code of conduct).
29. inspiration: social networks’ etiquette
• Online conversations replicate
real life conversations, and must
be considered real.
• There is no conversation without
listening. Conversation is a two
way process.
• Online conversations are not
“all about me”, and must focus
on community values.
30. inspiration: social networks’ etiquette
• In real life, would you follow somebody and claim to be his/her
friend without a proper introduction?
• Would you constantly talk about yourself and your business?
• Would you repeatedly ask favors to somebody you barely know?
• Would you introduce yourself as “john75” or “quality events”?
31. inspiration: facebook etiquette (dont’s)
• Don’t use a user profile picture with
brands or commercial info.
FB is a network for real people, not
a catalogue of classified ads.
• Don’t be a virtual user. Besides of
being against FB TOS and ground to
lose the account, users are always
diffident when interacting with
avatars with fake / business names.
• Don’t publish private conversations
on users’ wall making them public.
This is against the privacy.
Use direct messages instead.
32. inspiration: facebook etiquette (dont’s)
• Don’t ask for friendship if you represent
a business. It sounds weird.
• Don’t add friends without a proper
introduction or a welcome message.
Always say who you are and why / which
topics you would like to discuss woth
new friends.
• Don’t abuse apps invitations – both
for business apps and even worst with
zombies/farms. This is spam.
• Don’t abuse group invitations.
if your friends think your event is worth,
they’ll come. If they don’t answer, don’t
bomb them with reminders.
33. inspiration: facebook etiquette (dont’s)
• Don’t tag friends in embarrassing
photos or videos. This is against their
privacy.
• Don’t post unnecessary comments on
personal pictures that users upload,
such as family pictures.
• Don’t make it a drama if an user
removes a comment or tag you posted.
• Don’t use Facebook to create a
professional network, Facebook is for
personal connections. For business
networking try other sites like LinkedIn
or Xing instead.
34. inspiration: twitter etiquette (dont’s)
• Don’t unfollow somebody without having
had an exchange of tweets. Don’t unfollow
users because they unfollwed you.
• Don’t do “mass-following” just to make
your profile numbers bigger.
• Don’t use the Twitter stream for self-
promotion. Twitter is a conversational
channel, not a ads broadcasting one.
• Don’t use Twitter just to stream your RSS
feeds. Tweeps don’t like to follow
automated profiles.
• Don’t use your Twitter friend list for
commercial spam via direct messages.
35. inspiration: twitter etiquette (dont’s)
• Don’t use Twitter to communicate
directly with other users. Use direct
messages or email instead.
• Don’t abuse @references just to be
visible on somebody else’s feed.
• Don’t use Twitter for personal rants
and revenge. not well accepted by the
community, you’ll lose reputation.
• Don’t leave your Twitter profile
anonymous. Twitter is a relational channel,
users want to know who you are. Picture
and profile info are a must.
•Don’t abuse #hashtags and trending
topics to start off-topic conversations.
36. inspiration: yahoo!answers etiquette (dont’s)
• Don’t use Yahoo! Answers for
commercial communication. You could be
reported for abuse by users, or get banned
by the Y!A Editorial team.
• Don’t use answers to provide
commercial information. The risks of
getting reported by users are higher.
• Don’t criticize other users for their
answers, neither on your questions nor on
other users’. Even if other users’ answers
are not correct, go your expert way and
offer a detailed problem solving answer,
complete with reference links.
37. inspiration: yahoo!answers etiquette (dont’s)
•Don’t fight with other users and do not
accept provocations. If in your answer you
want to include a feedback to another user
who is attacking you, think before posting,
and express your disagreement in a kind
and professional way.
•Don’t send personal messages with
commercial communications. You will be
immediately reported as spam.
•Don’t forget that Yahoo! Answers is a
community of experts and e-fluencers.
Your only goal here should be being the
top expert of your field/business/brand
always offering knowledge and concrete
support in terms of problem solution.
38. inspiration: youtube etiquette (dont’s)
• Don’t repeatedly ask other users to
watch your videos. YouTube users love to
discover their own video, or to search for
their favorite topics.
• Don’t customize your YouTube channel
with interactive elements. YouTube is not
MySpace, and it’s interactive enough.
• Don’t post off-topics video in response
to successful ones.
•Don’t abuse of comments, don’t post
polemic comments, and avoid commercial
off-topic links.
39. inspiration: social news etiquette (dont’s)
Digg, StumbleUpon, Sphinn, Mixx...
•Don’t ask to vote always only your
news. Social News communities support
knowledge sharing, not commercial
broadcasting.
• Don’t ask other users to Digg your
articles with direct messages. Start a
public conversation about the topic
instead, and get some relevant content
ready that users will love to share.
•Don’t post always the same article.
This is spam.
40. inspiration: social news etiquette (dont’s)
• Don’t post articles that are off-topic to
the news portal. If a moderator says that
you are off-topic, apologize and don’t
insist on publishing the same content, or
you will be banned.
• Don’t use comments for link building.
• Don’t attack other users if they bury
your news. This is generally not against
you, but to point out the fact that the
content is commercial, spam or off-topic.
Sometimes bury is used as a sign of
disagreement on your content. Take it for
what it is and don’t start a drama about
it. Try to avoid it anyway by submitting
good content.
41. inspiration: friendfeed etiquette (dont’s)
• Don’t integrate all your feeds on
FriendFeed, each conversation belongs to
its original network.
• Don’t automate your FriendFeed profile.
FF is an online service but also a
professional community. Direct inputs on
FF have more value than those imported
via RSS.
• Don’t use FriendFeed if you are already
using other feeds aggregators such as
Ping.fm or Hellotxt, or you will ping-pong
spamming all networks with duplicate
content.
42. etiquette: all social sites (dont’s)
• Don’t invite all your friends every
time you discover a new social
network, and most definitely not by
submitting your Gmail address and
inviting everybody you ever
exchanged an email with.
Try to understand how the new site
and its community works first, then
invite just the friends who you
think would fit.
• Don’t start relational and editorial
activities on social networks before
reviewing the site’s terms and
conditions, and its community
guidelines.
45. last tips: about tones and consequences
•Everytime you post online you leave
a digital signature. It won’t always be
possible to cancel, modify or rectify
your posts.
•Bad content will be online forever,
will get indexed by search engines,
and will affect your online brand
reputation.
•Think how you content could be
received before publishing it.
Put logic before emotions when facing
situations you could repent later.
46. last tips: about tones and consequences
•Being aggressive and arrogant don’t
work in the real life, even less on the
web.
•While in the real life one could always
apologize, online you can have an
account revoked or banned in a matter
of seconds.
• Try to be always kind and professional
in online conversations. Fun is good
too. Be nice and enjoy what you are
doing, the conversation, the experience
and the business on social networks
will be better.
• Don’t be stupid! =)
48. telepass decalogue for employees’ activity
online and within social media networks
• Transparency, privacy and data confidentiality.
• We are people, not computers.
• Share your knowledge.
• Add value to the conversation.
• In doubt, don’t publish.
• No polemics and fights on the web.
• Destructured coordinated communication.
• The Good, the Bad, but not the Ugly.
• It’s a collaborative web, share your best.
• Have fun, but don’t forget about your day job.
49. telepass guidelines for employees’
engagement in online conversations
• We commit to share value through our
online activities.
• Our content is on-topic, non polemic or
offensive, and balanced with the other
conversations (fair use, no spam).
• We commit to respond to all enquires
in a kind and professional way and in a
timing that is apropriated for the social
web.
• We listen also to other conversations,
participating and contributing always with
an open, frank and friendly attitude.
50. telepass guidelines for employees’
engagement in online conversations
• When we don’t agree on other users’
point of view, we express it in an
appropriate and educated way.
• We support anti-spam practices,
and contribute to the social web with
appropriate titles and descriptions for
our web contributions, tagging all
media in a relevant way.
• We respect other users’ intellectual
property, copyright and privacy.
• We comply to all confidentiality, privacy
and employees policies in use at Telepass.