I recently met with a prominent Marketing Director in the city who was talking about how he had to revisit his own personal social media policy and make amendments to it.
His new policies included: Twitter is for everyone, Facebook is just for friends, and it was time to cease the auto-generation of the Twitter feed to his LinkedIn profile because his professional Asia Pacific contacts just didn’t get it.
It made me think about what my own personal social media policy was and on a broader sense what my overall online policy was.
My own social media policy
Rules for Twitter
- Anyone can follow me on Twitter and I’ll follow anyone that follows me too – as long as they are not spammers.
- Most of my posts are work related but social posts are fine too.
- Say relevant things and post regularly but not too much to be annoying.
- Start and engage in conversations with people. One sided conversations are boring.
Rules for Facebook
- I prefer this to stay for friends but saying that I won’t reject anyone I have met in person.
- My public Facebook profile only shows my profile image and my work web address and Twitter profile. Everything else is private.
- ‘Untag’ any photos that are not flattering immediately!
Rules for LinkedIn
- Keep it current, keep it relevant and keep it up-to-date.
- Get my profile content to what LinkedIn deems the ‘100% mark’. This includes recommendations from clients and colleagues.
- Don’t auto-generate the updates with Twitter content. I could link my Twitter feed to this account but I’m pretty sure that my business contacts don’t care about how I’m hitting Kerbside Bar or listening to Snoop Dog.
Rules for Instagram
- Like Twitter – anyone can follow me and I’ll follow anyone that follows me too.
- Most of my Instagram posts are personal.
- I like cute, pretty or unusual things, so that’s what I post.
- Everyone likes to be ‘liked’ so I share the love and ‘like’ other people’s pictures.
Other Rules
- Could my parents see this post / photo and still be proud of me? If the answer is yes – go for it!
- Don’t explicitly swear.
- Don’t disrespect any other person. Even if they really annoy me / rip me off / provide a crappy service.
- By nice. Be positive.
- If you wouldn’t want it to end up publicly in print or online don’t write it and don’t upload a picture of it EVER. Even in a private message. You just never know when it might come back to bite you. I use this rule for text messages too.
Author: Christine Bridge
Related Topics:
Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Social Media, Twitter
