Best practices for developing a social media policy

The following best practices will also help organizations to successfully develop and implement corporate blogging policies and guidelines for their employees.
Legacy guidelines: Use existing humanresources and communications policies. Start with the employee communications agreement that is already in place in your organization as the foundation for your new policy. Provide guardrails foremployees so they can safely and successfully engage in social media practices. Employees often seek help and guidance when they are considering launching a blog. Provide them the resources they want andneed.
Developing new guidelines: Include company bloggers in the process of developing corporate blogging policies and guidelines. Think ahead in your social media policy development. Developpolicies that will extend to other new and emerging communications technologies such as podcasts and video, etc. Once published, distribute guidelines widely. Companies that have facilitated widerdistribution had their guidelines shared virally.
Legal Department: If you have a legal department, include them in the process but don't let them drive the effort. Seek input from legal when developingblogging polices.
Employee Communications: If you have an employee communications department, partner with them to develop these new polices.
Whose views?: Clearly define if the blog reflects theemployee(s)’ opinions or the company’s perspective.
Allow constructive criticism: Is it permissible for your employees to provide a differing point of view from management's position? A culture of opencommunication will provide the strongest foundation for the successful rollout of a social media program.
Responding to comments: Set up a mechanism for responding to every comment that requires a reply.Acknowledge mistakes: Acknowledge mistakes and fix errors on your blog in a timely and open manner.
Deleting confidential information: If information needs to be deleted because it is confidential...