Semantics: Social Media Policy, or Guidelines?

As associations continue to embrace social media, there have been extensive conversations about the need for an organizational social media policy. We SocialFish wrote a white paper about it, there’s the Social Media Governance web site with a data base of 154 policies and a Google search of “social media policy†has 440 million results. Almost all of these discussions support the development of a social media policy. So you can imagine my surprise to see a post via Twitter entitled Here’s Why You Don’t Really Need a Social Media Policy written by Lance Haun. Instead of heresy, this is really an argument about semantics – policy versus guidelines. Although the SocialFish white paper and many others use the term “social media policy†, we are really talking about social media guidelines.

Policy

“Policy†is one of those words that people use in many different contexts –  similar to the dichotomy of goals vs. objectives and strategy vs. tactics. We call many documents policies, when they are really guidelines, procedures, rules, directives or processes. Similarly, people often call an objective a goal and label something as a strategy when it is a tactic. As an aside, Olivier Blanchard of The Brand Builder Blog has written several very tongue-in-cheek posts about the inappropriate use and overuse of the words “strategy†and “strategists.†But I digress; back to policies.

For the purist, according to a Google search of “define: policy†, a policy is a high level, general statement with broad applications to help guide people’s decisions and behavior. For most associations, policies are set at the board level, while the staff defines how, when and where the policy is to be implemented – through procedures, guidelines, directives, processes or even best practices. But we call many things policies, such as our human resources, conflict of interest, antitrust, investment and financial policies that are guidelines or directives, not policies. For example, is the requirement for an employee to “get a doctor’s certificate when absent more than three (3) days” really a policy? I think it is a directive or rule, not a policy, but many call them policies since the board approved the employee handbook. (A discussion for another day is whether the board needs to approve the employee handbook…) An alternative is for the board to establish an overall personnel policy (respect individuals, family-friend, and commitment to personal and professional development) and leave the details (rules, guidelines, procedures) to the staff.

Guidelines

Guidelines are one of many formats used by associations to implement and support its policies. Princeton University defined guidelines as a “guidepost: a rule or principle that provides guidance to appropriate behavior.†Wikipedia expands upon this idea, defining a guideline as “any document that aims to streamline particular processes according to a set routine. !Guidelines may be issued by and used by any organization (governmental or private) to make the actions of its employees or divisions more predictable, and presumably of higher quality.â€

Social Media

So what does this mean for social media? The term “social media policy†is technically a misnomer since it is not really a policy. However, social media should be a part of your association’s communication policy and strategy. I prefer the term “social media guidelines†since your purpose is to guide employee behavior.

I disagree with Mr. Haun that social media should be addressed only as a training issue by the human resources department. Training is important but it needs to be based on your association’s social media guidelines. Social media permeates the organization, as many- if not all – employees now engage online both personally and professionally. Before, only a small number of employees spoke officially on behalf of the organization and/or actively engaged with members. Today everyone participates and establishes relationships with members, prospects and other stakeholders. Social media guidelines should begin with the purpose of online engagement; so employees and members know how to engage online. One training issue is to help employees identify some of the dangers present at both personal and professional levels.

Bottom Line

It doesn’t matter what you call it, but you need to give your employees and members guidance on how to engage successfully online. Your social media guidelines or policy is only one step in implementing your social media and communication strategy. But it is an important one.

The guidelines should be supported by training in how to use social media tools effectively and appropriately.

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