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SXSW Follow-Up – Corporate Social Media Guidelines

On Saturday afternoon, the Network Solutions Social Media Swami, Shashi B, and I spoke as a part of the South By SouthWest conference in beautiful, but rainy and cold Austin, Texas. Shashi and I will be doing a more complete recap when he returns from Austin. He is still there as the conference winds down.

First in regards to the conference, I want to say my wife, Rebecca (check her contemporary furniture line at www.17thandriggs.com) and I had a great time at SXSW and we met so many fantastic people over the weekend. It was tough leaving Sunday as the conference was just getting into high gear, but hey what can you do work was calling. We are still bummed we did not get to hit a Tex-Mex place to eat when we were there. Every place had such a long line. Guess we just have to hit a Chi-Chi’s now….HA! Too bad they are all closed.

Anyway, on Saturday we had a great session titled “A Hard Sell? Social Media & Your Boss. The audience was super engaged and we had a lively Q&A session. It was a standing and sitting room only crowd that turned out. Thanks to Steve Fisher for the warm introduction by the way at the beginning of Shashi and my talk. And yes, Steve that was the Beastie Boys’ Sabotoge (check the great video) blasting from the next conference room during the Q&A.

Also we missed you Jill Foster at the conference. The Network Solutions contingent was not complete without you.

Anyhow as I said more of a recap later, but I promised that I would make a set of social media guidelines available to attendees and others as the guidelines were part of the discussion on Saturday. As we said at SXSW, if you are thinking of launching a social media initiative, Social Media Guidelines of some kind are a good way to a) get legal departments to buy into embracing social media, b) get everyone in the company on the same page as to some best practices and c) make people aware that failure to meet the guidelines can result in loss of a job and exposing the company to liability so compliance is mandatory. These guidelines along with the processes that our entire legal department have implemented and use to support Network Solutions social media efforts have really been helpful. All of the legal folks at Network Solutions have contributed to the success thus far of our social media efforts.

Now I will make my standard disclaimer. These guidelines do not constitute legal guidance. They are solely for informational purposes. Each company is different so consult legal counsel in preparing your company’s guidelines.

Also here are is a great link that describes lawsuits that deal with social media – a few of which were even filed just in the last two months. Also on Sunday, Keith Casey suggested we do a follow-up post that actually narrates some of the thinking behind the guidelines. Look for that over the next few days.

So here they are (feel free to leave your comments after). By the way, these guidelines draw from a variety of sites that discuss this issue as well as other company’s policies beyond Network Solutions.

Employee Social Media & Blogging Guidelines:

Communicating online has potential risks for you and for the company. As a result, every employee needs to understand the risks. The following are some of the risks to communicating online via different social media outlets.

Unauthorized or inappropriate commentary or posts online can:

• Get the Company, and you, in legal trouble with the U.S. and other government agencies, other companies, customers or the general public.
• Diminish the Company’s brand name by creating negative publicity for The Company, owners and partners as well as yourself or your team.
• Cause damage to The Company by releasing non-public information or proprietary information.
• Cost us the ability to get patents or undermine our competitive advantage.
• Cost you your job at the Company.

Most of these risks can be avoided by just being careful and responsible and using common sense and sound judgment. Here is a summary of the important rules to follow to avoid getting in trouble when blogging or engaging in other forms of online communication activities. Violation of any applicable company policy may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment.

Important rules to follow when blogging:

1. Do not disclose or speculate on non-public financial or operational information. The legal consequences could be swift and severe for you and The Company.
2. Do not disclose non-public technical information (for example, code) without approval. The Company could instantly lose its right to protect its intellectual property or proprietary information. If you have any question about whether the information is proprietary, please contact the Legal Department for input prior to posting.
3. Do not disclose personal or private information about other individuals.
4. Do not disclose confidential information, The Company’ or anyone else’s.
5. Do not discuss company policies or work-related legal proceedings or controversies, including communications with The Company attorneys.
6. Do not post negative content or defamatory, libelous, offensive or demeaning material or other types of content that may relate to drugs, alcohol or tobacco, pornography or other offensive or illegal material.
7. Please check the Topic Taboo List below for topics that employees are prohibited from discussing in any online posts.
8. Do not post others’ material, for example photographs, articles, or music, without ensuring they’ve granted appropriate permission to do this.
9. Follow The Company’ Systems Security Policy (see in particular sections on Personal Websites, Blogging and Online Communication) and the Code of Business Conduct and Ethics and uphold The Company’ reputation for integrity. In particular, ensure that your comments about companies and products are truthful, accurate, and fair and can be substantiated, and avoid naming specific customers or generally disparaging comments about individuals.
10. If you are writing about a current product that The Company offers, coordinate with the appropriate Product Manager to ensure the accuracy of your content.
11. Always use your real name, not an alias or a made up name in blog posting, comments on blogs or forums especially if you are posting on behalf of The Company.
12. Do not plagiarize material (using content that is already published). Failure to follow this could subject you to termination and legal liability for you and The Company.
13. All posts about company products must be consistent with marketing and advertising laws.
14. All of your posts are subject to the Terms of Use for the particular blog or social networking site so review the Terms of Use prior to posting any content.
15. If you have a question on any of the above or whether you should post information, please contact the Public Relations, Legal Department or the Ethics/Policy Department.

Topic Taboo List

Consistent with the The Company Employee Social Media and Blogging Guidelines, please do not write any content or postings that involve or related to the following items:

• Topics in which The Company is involved in litigation or could in the future: (i.e. policy, customer disputes, etc.)
• Non-public information of any kind about The Company, including, but not limited to, policies and strategy
• Illegal or banned substances and narcotics
• Pornography or other offensive illegal materials
• Defamatory, libelous, offensive or demeaning material
• Private/Personal matters of yourself or others
• Disparaging/threatening comments about or related to anyone
• Personal, sensitive or confidential information of any kind

Also note if your company is publicly traded you will need to make sure all statements/comments/posts etc. comply with SEC rules and regulations that govern such companies. Here is an example of Intel’s Social Media Guidelines. They are really good guidelines. Lastly, for companies that are located outside the U.S. there are likely more regulations that need to be considered depending upon the country the company is in.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

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