C.G. Lynch has posted a thoughtful piece regarding corporate policy and social media that I read at CIO Magazine‘s site. I think the most compelling point for me was that guidelines should be generated collaboratively. The modes of social media usage employed within your company is roughly the same as the number of employees involved with social media. An entity the size of a corporation can’t possibly anticipate all the variations of social media usage currently at play under its umbrella. Even if it managed to do so today, it would be wrong by tomorrow.
The social media landscape is fluid, as is its usage. Centralized definition of the policy can never hope to be current. Think of Brittanica vs. Wikipedia. Brittanica needs to release periodic appendices to keep its content from going out of date. Even so, Wikipedia remains largely more accurate largely due to the fluidity of the content. In the same manner, your policy will remain more relevant if it can be more fluid.
In short, your policy process needs to become social.
