Lisa Colton presents to the San Diego participants at the Leichtag Social Media Boot Camp, September 2014.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA
POLICIES &
GUIDELINES
With Lisa Colton

2. What We’ll Cover Today
• The Value of a Policy
• Values Inform Policy
• Building Your Policy Step By Step

3. 3 Obstacles to Social Media Maturity
(You need fertile soil!)

4. Fear

5. Allocation of Resources

6. Get Everyone On The Same Page

7. EMBRACE THE PROCESS
It can be even more
valuable than the
PRODUCT

8. What Are Your Goals?
What does this policy mean for your organization?

9. Where Do You Fall On The Spectrum?
Tactical: Spell
everything out!
Vision: Strategy doc to help
others make decisions!
Legal: lawyers
lead the charge
Informal: informal
guidelines for staff
For key personnel only Everyone will read and understand

10. Values Direct Policy

11. Determine Your Social Media Values
From these values, create guidelines to use when posting…
What are your core values? How do they translate?
Value
Responsiveness
Impartiality
What does this mean for your presence
in the social media world?
We will focus on listening to what others
are saying in our community and make a
priority to respond in a quick and
informative manner.
We will not take a stance on political issues
in our posts nor offer recommendations
that are not grounded in facts.

12. From Denver Academy of Torah’s Policy
When thinking about the type of content DAT would like to
promote, the following are the basic guidelines:
• Educate- take advantage of what is available by highlighting
articles, ideas, concepts that represent what we believe is
educationally relevant.
• Walk the Talk- the values we teach our students apply to our
own online behavior.
• Explore – take risks within reason, take advantage of the
almost unlimited online resources.
• Share- show what we are doing and share our students’
successes
• Show- Demonstrate our support and love of Israel. Show our
enthusiasm for learning and teaching. Show our consideration
and care for our community

13. Let’s Try It Out: Organizational Values
1. Turn to page 13 to see a list of values to brainstorm.
1. What are your organization’s values (either from this list of
otherwise)? Pick 3.
2. Turn to page 14. How will those values be manifest in your
social media work? Jot down some notes.
3. Share with the person sitting next to you. Why did you pick
those values, and how might it impact your work?
4. Let’s hear a few highlights of what you learned from each
other.

14. Who Should Be Involved?
Who needs to have input into
the policy?
Who needs to have buying to
the policy?
Who needs to be educated
about the policy?
What other policies might need
to be referenced?

15. Who Should Do What?
Communications Strategy Privacy
Customer Service Content Planning
Content Creation/Coordination Content Posting
Monitoring Measurement
Policy / Sensitive Issues Training, Learning
Turn to page 16. Do you know who should be playing each of these roles?

16. The Davis Academy, Parent Ambassadors
Parents were an important player in
their social media policy goals:
1. Knew parents and alumni were
key to better engagement.
2. Wanted to set intentional culture.
3. Wanted to model values they
expect from students.
4. Needed to teach parents what to
do and why it mattered.

17. What Should You Say?
Make you posts related to your
values:
• What is totally within bounds?
• When is it okay to post
outside of your guidelines?

18. What Should You NOT Say?
What requires approval to post?
What is taboo?
From Westchester Day School’s policy:
“Never post real-time location information about WDS students online.”
“In an emergency or crisis, do not share information related to WDS via
social media; if WDS needs to communicate via social media, an
administrator will do so.”

19. Responding to Positive (and Neutral) Things
When do you respond?
Who should respond?
What do you say?
What are the implications?
How is this connected to
your brand?
From Denver Academy of Torah:
“We also will do our upmost to respond to most comments/responses within 48
hours. When appropriate we will respond with phone calls.”

20. And…What Does It Mean To “Respond”?

21. Responding To Negative Things
Should you limit or moderate discussion within your community?
Will hurtful comments
damage your community?
Where might people say
these things instead?
Will it let you show how
responsive you are?
From Denver Academy of Torah:
“We welcome the opportunity to have
discourse and engage with our community.
As such, healthy conversations and potential
disagreements can be productive and
stimulating. Disparaging or personal
comments will not be tolerated. Take
conversations offline that require further
discussion or are personal in nature. We
reserve the right to delete in appropriate
comments. Be open, responsive,
professional and positive.”
Consider the actual damage that will be done

22. Guidelines For Your Community

23. Privacy Issues
What are your potential
privacy issues?
• Faces?
• Names?
• Ages?
• What can you post?
• What can you only
post with permission
from those
included?
• What can you never
post?
• What should you
keep private?
Please refer to your organization’s privacy policy
for more details, and include or reference as
appropriate in your social media policy.

24. Personal vs. Professional: Posting
What is NOT okay to post in
each circumstance?
• Posting as the organization
on organizational account
• Posting as individual on
organizational account
• Posting as an individual on
individual account

25. Personal vs. Professional:
Relationships
Can staff befriend:
• Board Members
• Volunteers
• Coworkers
• Parents
• Teachers
• Case Workers
• Children

26. From Charles E Smith Jewish Day School (sample of language used):
Employees are expected to exercise prudence in creating their online networks
in social media. Because of the widespread use of Facebook and the
opportunities it provides for providing access to an employee’s personal
information and postings, the School has established the following provisions
for establishing social media relationships (“friending”) students, alumni,
parents, and other members of the professional community.
• Employees may not initiate or accept friend or contact requests from current
students of any age or former students under the age of 18…
• Employees are discouraged from “friending” parents of current or
prospective students, due to the inherent conflicts of interest that this may
raise …
• Employees are asked to use good judgment when making or accepting
“friend” (or “connection”) requests to or from School colleagues…
• The School encourages employees to remind all other members of their
networks of their positions as educators whose profiles may be accessed by
students and other members of the School community…

27. Personal vs. Professional:
Relationships
What happens at your organization?
What’s your personal line?
What’s comfortable or uncomfortable?

28. Download Additional Copies of the
Social Media Policy Workbook
For Jewish Organizations
• 10 topics
• Sample language
• Exercises
http://www.darimonline.org/smpw

29. Thank You!
Questions?
Experience to Share?
http://www.darimonline.org/smpw