As 2012 Winds Down

As 2012 winds down there were several major stories that I came across that are worth sharing.

First, not even the former marketing director of Facebook knows how the privacy policies at Facebook work. Randi Zuckerberg is the sister of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg found out the hard way. On Christmas Day Randi posted a family photo on Facebook. She thought only her friends could see it. Boy was she wrong. Shortly after posting someone posted the photo to Twitter. She asked the person to remove the photo from Twitter. When you set photos to only be available to friends, you’re not really setting them to be viewed only by friends. I expect a revised version of how to make photos on Facebook private any day now. Here’s the photo that caused the ruckus…

from Mashable

Second, a local nonprofit executive is suing LinkedIn, because someone put up a LinkedIn profile with his personal information without his permission. I’m not sure why someone would post his private information on LinkedIn in this manner. It leads me to point out that even if you don’t post information to social media – others will on your behalf. If they post with nefarious reasons it can damage your personal or your organization’s reputation online. It can take weeks if not months to clean this up online. Pay attention!

Third, Last week I attended a great seminar at Jones Day that featured attorneys and representatives from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) who discussed social media policies. The NLRB has a sample social media policy that you can use that the NLRB’s Acting General Counsel deems lawful. It is found in NLRB Operations Memorandum 12-59. At the seminar they also noted that privacy rules like HIPAA may need to be followed and thus would need to be included in the social media policy.

image from Business2community.com

Finally, as social media continues to change how we do work, how we communicate and how we live, 2013 should be an interesting year. What do you expect from social media in 2013? Let us know in the comments.

Posting User Social Media Guidelines

Beth Kanter, who I’ve written about before (1)(2)(3), recently shared a copy of the AARP’s Facebook Community Guidelines. These are a set of guidelines letting people know what they may and may not post on the AARP Facebook page(s). It’s short, simple, and straightforward. As you are considering social media guidelines for your agency, are you considering how the person on the other end uses social media as it relates to you, e.g. your official agency Facebook page?

Here’s the AARP Facebook Community Guidelines:
“Welcome to AARP’s official Facebook fan page! Here we’ll share breaking news, interesting stories and the latest member benefits. We want to keep our Facebook page an open forum, but we’re also a family friendly group, so please keep comments and wall posts clean. We want you to tell us what’s on your mind, but if it falls into any of the categories below, we’ll have to remove it: – We do not allow graphic, obscene, explicit or racial comments or submissions nor do we allow comments that are abusive, hateful or intended to defame anyone or any organization. – We do not allow third party solicitations or advertisements. This includes promotion or endorsement of any financial, commercial or non-governmental agency. Similarly, we do not allow attempts to defame or defraud any financial, commercial or non-governmental agency. – We do not allow comments that suggest or encourage illegal activity. – You participate at your own risk, taking personal responsibility for your comments, your username and any information provided. Also, the appearance of external links on this page does not constitute official endorsement on behalf of AARP or our members. Whew! Now that all THAT is out of the way, let’s get to know each other. Post, share and tell us what you’d like to see more of from AARP.”

Social Media Policy Guidelines for Nonprofits

I was fortunate enough to serve on a committee of AFP International that brought together some social media gurus to hash out guidelines that nonprofit organizations can use to craft their own social media policies. These guidelines focus on social media from a fundraiser’s point of view but they are easy to tweak to your own needs and a great starting point if you are starting from scratch.

The official version of the social media guidelines document is online and available for downloading in either a one-page summary or a full version with detailed guidelines and examples. I highly recommend reviewing the document to see how it can benefit your agency.

With the release of these guidelines I wanted to share 7 reasons why you should have a social media policy.

7. It should fit seamlessly into your agency’s technology, human resource and marketing policies.

6. Your staff are given guidelines on how to interact with customers in a user-friendly way.

5. You are better able to engage your customers, volunteers, donors, and the community at large.

4. Social media policies provide details on how to interact with your customers

3. Do you really want the summer college intern speaking on your behalf in an official capacity?

2. If you read this blog regularly, you know that social media is how people interact online with each other in real time, how they share information, pictures and videos.

1. It’s just good common sense.

Do you already have a social media policy that you’d like to share? What are some examples of social media policies that you like? Please feel free to share in the comments.

Social Media Policies

Mashable has a nice story about why you should have a Social Media Policy at your agency. As more of your employees are likely Tweeting, posting to Facebook, and uploading videos and photos, you need to make sure they aren’t posting information about your agency without your agency’s permission. You need to protect your brand by avoiding HIPAA violations, general privacy and confidentiality issues, libelous or slanderous acts, and control what is said to the public by unofficial people who may be assumed to be speaking on behalf of your organization just to name a few. Having a policy in place that delineates who may or may not post on behalf of your agency that addresses this is vital.

The Social Media Governance website has 82 examples of social media policies in place at corporations. You should review these to see what you may glean for your own agency’s policy.

If you already have a policy in place and would be willing to share it, please send it to me at dtinker at achieva.info. I would be happy to post it here at this blog.

Greatnonprofits.org

Have you visited Greatnonprofits yet? It is a web site that allows visitors to rate your agency and post reviews and comments about it. It also allows you to use a pre-formatted box to link to their site so people can review your agency.

Greatnonprofits has partnered with Guidestar to post the reviews from your Greatnonprofits listing to your organization’s Guidestar listing. Here’s a link explaining it in greater detail.

If you haven’t already addressed the need to address what people say about your agency online, this news release might be a little scary.

What things do you need to do to get ahead of the curve on this trend, ie people leaving reviews and comments on public sites that can. Do you need to contact your donors or people you serve? What about others who might not have nice things to say?

Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Another tool for your Social Media Toolbox

Here are 10 Must Haves for your agency’s social media policy. What, you don’t have one? Your not alone. But it is something you should really consider as it becomes a more important tool in your box of marketing and outreach tricks.

Here is a sample policy that you may want to use as a template for your own agency.

View this document on Scribd

5 Questions before you start before building your social media

Paul Miller wrote a brief article on the “5 Questions to Ask Before Build Social Media Campaigns“. It’s worth a read.

His five questions are:

1. Who are you targeting?
2. How does your target audience use social media?
3. How should you come across?
4. What do you want to achieve?
5. Are you ready for a long engagement?

You have to read the story to see his answers. The article is from the website eMarketingandcommerce.com Please visit the site to see if more of their stories and information is useful to you in your endeavors.

Have you read your legislator’s tweet yet?

I was reading Aldon Hayes’ post about following his legislator’s tweet. His legislator, Gary Holder-Winfield from New Haven, CT, is the only elected official to use social networking. In fact, there was a small brouhaha when legislators twittered during President Obama’s state of the union address.

To see if your legislators use Twitter visit www.TweetCongress.org. This site has a list of congressmen who use Twitter. Please note that the site also includes the YouTube webpage links for the legislators.

Have you checked to see if your legislator is using Twitter, or Facebook, or YouTube, or any other social media or networking site to connect with their constituents? If they are are you following them or communicating with them through their social media contacts?

Please share a list of your legislators who use social media so we may compile a list here.

Social Media for Nonprofits 101 – Press Here to Play

This is a thread from the Information Systems Forum at Yahoo Groups. I am a subscriber to this group and I want to share it with you because this thread addresses the basic questions of social networking and how to harness it for your organization.

I wish to thank Dan Bassill for his great questions and Aldon Hynes for his great response.

Re: Online social networking for high-profile nonprofit executives
Posted by: “Dan Bassill” tutormentor2@earthlink.net tutormentor
Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:29 am (PST)
Thank you for your analysis. How are you or others using these social networking tools to move members of your network to action. Facebook messaging limits an outbound message to 20 people. Linked in limits it to 10. If you want to invite the 850 friends on Facebook to look at a report, or come to a meeting, or do some action for a common purpose, how are you using these tools to accomplish that?

If you envision a time line starting with a goal on the far end (e.g. “improve local school”) and the current status of the situation on the other end, it will take a variety of actions repeated over time, involving many people in your network, and in networks of other people, to reach the goal on the far end.

Can any of you provide examples, web sites, or case studies, of of how you or others using social networking spaces in to increase the number of people involved in a cause, point them to common information actions, and keep them involved for many years?

I suspect the use of these media to help Obama get elected would be one example. However, what will this look like in four or eight years? Will he have used these tools to get people involved in solving complex problems?

Dan Bassill
Tutor/Mentor Connection
http://tutormentor.blogspot.com

Back to top
Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post
Messages in this topic (7)
6b.
Re: Online social networking for high-profile nonprofit executives
Posted by: “Aldon Hynes” Aldon.Hynes@Orient-Lodge.com ahynes1
Tue Jan 27, 2009 4:33 am (PST)
Dan,

Great questions. I’ll see what I can do to answer them. First, I should note that my background is mostly on the political side, but I believe that the experiences there apply pretty well for any sort of activism.

The first thing that is important is building community. Personally, I like to have lots of interconnected communities (again going back to the idea of being a connector). So, if having an email list, that is a great place to start. You’ve got the beginning of your community there. Is your email list one that is broadcast oriented, e.g. a limited number of people from the organization can send out emails, or is it a real discussion, e.g. everyone can send messages? There are advantages to both. So, one thing to do is to get a mailing list that is available for everyone to chat. Make them feel more part of the community. Don’t be too strict about what people chat about. If you have a broadcast only list, keep that list, and send out an email announcing the discussion list. If there are interesting things on the discussion list, post highlights to the broadcast list. I like using Yahoo Groups or Google Groups for these sorts of discussions, like what we are doing here right now.

Then, take the plunge and set up a group on Facebook. Announce the Facebook group on your broadcast and discussion mailing list. Ask people to join the group, and most importantly, ask them to ask their friends. This is part of the community building and list building. On the Facebook group, point back to your organizations website. Encourage people to sign up for your broadcast and/or discussion groups.

My wife is Senior Organizer for Common Cause in Connecticut. She set up a Facebook group there. The group has grown to over a hundred members, much of it through friends inviting friends.

As your community grows, keep coming up with small, simple, fun and immediate asks. As an example, Ben and Jerry’s is contributing profits from the Yes, Pecan ice cream to Common Cause during the month of January. Ask people to go buy ice cream. Folks in Massachusetts did an even better job of this, urging people to get together at a Ben and Jerry’s to buy Yes, Pecan ice cream. This helped raise money for the organization and build a stronger sense of community at the same time. As a side note, the idea of coming up with actions that a few people can do together often seem to work particularly well, you get a few people encouraging one another, and often reaching out in a viral way to bring in new members.

With Facebook Groups, you can send messages to everyone in the group, similar to a broadcast email in a traditional mailing list. Yet it ties back to Facebook and often seems to be more effective, although I must admit I get a lot of Facebook Group notices that I disregard.

It is also worth noting that Facebook has a Causes app that can be used for recruiting members and for asking for donations. I haven’t done much with the Causes app, but I would encourage people to check it out.

With that, let me move over briefly to Twitter. As an organizer for Common Cause, one of my wife’s key responsibilities is to track what is going on at the capitol and get people to respond. With the collapse of local newspapers, it becomes harder and harder to get accurate news out of state capitols. So, I’ve encouraged my wife to start using Twitter. These messages can be personal (My blood test has come back negative for Lyme!), cute and mildly work related (A bunch of cute school kids just entered the House gallery), or more of an ask, (Appropriations meetings are public, anyone interested in attending to support Clean Elections, please come on Mon 11 AM LOB Htfd.)

As with groups and mailing lists, it takes time to build up a following, especially a following of people that will respond to requests. Given the timeliness of the Twitter, it is great for people making quick decisions and responses, such as call a legislator now requests.

Let me take this to the idea that Dan talks about, improving local schools. Anyone can set up a group. It can start very small. I’m a member of the ‘Massaro Farm of Woodbridge’ group. It is a small group of people interested in taking a farm donated to the town of Woodbridge and making it a Community Supporter Agriculture farm. There are currently nine people in the group. You could start a group to address a particular problem at a particular local school. It takes time to get people to connect to the group. You spread the word virally, both face to face, and through facebook. When there are some actions, post about them. Set up an account on Twitter. Send messages about this on Twitter to get more people involved and more people taking action.

Enough rambling on right now. I hope you find this helpful.

Aldon
http://www.orient-lodge.com

Tweets by ahynes1

PS If you are interested, to join the Information Systems Forum (it’s free), send a blank email to Information_Systems_Forum-SUBSCRIBE@yahoogroups.com

Writing an IT policy for your nonprofit

Here is a great overview of what to consider when writing your agency’s IT policy.

http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/techplan/page11186.cfm

Social media should be a part of this policy.