As someone working everyday in the social media space, I get asked a lot, a lot, about social media policies.  While you can refer to a near encyclopedia of examples and build a behemoth with legal, HR and a “committee” – more than likely you’ll end up with a document that few people will read and even fewer will follow.  With more employees using smart phones and easier ways to circumvent blocks at work, you’re assured that folks are going to engage in social media. (Something I strongly encourage, after all, it’s about listening, collaboration – who doesn’t want that in their company culture?)

Instead of a laborious policy that no one reads and sits in a perfectly bland 3-ring binder in a cabinet somewhere, look to keep it as simple as possible. My take? Seven rules (tenets, principles, points, whatever you call them) to compose nearly any effective social media policy:

Social media policies are only useful if people can read them - in less than 10 minutes.

1. Be smart: You are bound by your company’s policies and by common sense, even on social media channels.  Everything you say online is in the public space and is permanent, act accordingly.
2. Be responsible: You are responsible to any content, conversation or comment you post.
3. Be truthful: All information posted should be factual and accurate, and also atrributed properly if you’re quoting someone else or his/her research. Contribute to content or conversations that are within your area of expertise. If you come across any area of concern on a social media channel, direct the link to the appropriate expert or product manager. If it’s a legal issue or question, simply pass that link with a request for review and comment to your company’s Legal Department (or if you’re in a smaller company, send it to HR or the boss). In the same notion, if you make a mistake, admit it and correct it quickly.
4. Be transparent: Fully disclose your status an employee/contractor with your company.
5. Be sensitive: Do not post or reference confidential information related to the company or any of its products.  (You’d think this would be obvious, but plenty of folks post inside intell into the company’s prospects, products, or personnel. See first point above.)
6. Be polite: Online communities are not the place to disparage competitors, coworkers, vendors or anyone related to the work and products of your company. Social media is not the place to get into any online exchange that could be construed as negative or bickering. If you can post a factual correction to misstated facts related to products or services, do so simply, factually and politely.
7. Be secure: Read and understand the security policies, terms of agreement of every social media channel in which you engage. Only allow “pop-ups” if you know and trust the source. Check with IT before opening or running any “.exe” file.

What do you think? What might you add, takeaway, or fill-in?

And yes, feel free to “borrow” this to start your own social media policy. And if you want your people to be socially-sensible and successful, send over a note.

When describing the thing you’ve built for the last five years, you’d be amazed at how tricky it can be.  When I started CloudSpark in 2005, I was determined to work with clients I believed in and to create work that was focused on building our clients’ brands and bottom lines. Nearly as important to me, I struck out to create a new kind of agency.

I started as a solo practioner – taking on clients and work, partnering with other talented solo practioners or freelancers when the work required it.  With hard work, clients I called partners, and a few well-placed risks that earned us accolades, I found more work than I could handle. I leaped over the hurdle and made a hire.  Now a couple of years later, we’re rockin’ it as a small team, and I’m focused on creating a better agency experience for my team of Sparks and for our clients.

But I kept running into the same barrier – how do I characterize my agency in an industry that loves to categorize (and rank) itself around size and affiliation?  I’m no longer a true solo practioner. We’re not a boutique PR agency, that label is typically used when an agency specializes in one industry. We’re not an independent agency which has a huge variance in team size, but really could be any agency that’s not part of the eight largest agencies in our industry.  And well, the term agency, just seemed too generic…like a bad sweater some relative sent you that’s a size too big. And scratchy. 

So what are we?

We’re a microagency.  We’re a small core team of experienced, deeply talented, and hard-working communications professionals.  We scale up by bringing in freelancers or experts as needed to serve our clients.  We’re not tethered to a single address, instead choosing to work virtually.  When we need to, we meet on a regular basis at a beautiful office in an upscale  glass and steel building in a nice part of town.

I’ve spent the past month testing out the label with my team, but also with people I meet. It seemed to intrigue them and just as importantly, it seemed ‘right’ to me. So today, I’m putting ink to paper, pixels to screen, and declaring it for the world to know: we’re a microagency.

Inspired by Mashable’s 100 Upcoming Social Media and Technology Conferences list, we cracked open our planners and decided where we could invest our time in learning this fall. We decided on a few national conferences, opted for a few marketing, technology, and PR meetings, but when we got to the topic of social media, we were nearly crushed with the options. While we’d like to go to BlogWorld and APPNation, we needed to consider just how much time we could spend out of the office and our carbon footprint (Jenny’s traveling to speak in Houston at IS Conference and in San Diego at LavaCon). To save on time, we considered only social media conferences and events in Atlanta. To our surprise, we found a dozen* (this post started as 12, but with your input, it’s now at 17) social media conferences and meetings in Atlanta happening before the calendar flips to the new year. What’d we find? Take a look:

 While we’re narrowing down our options, reviewing speakers, and the value we’d get for our time out of the office, tell us how you decide on what conferences to attend? If you are coming to any of these conferences or headed to Atlanta for the first time, let’s be social and connect while you’re here. (Know about a conference we missed? Send us an email and let us know.)

*Thanks to Scott Lockhart (@scott_regator) for sending us the info on Mashable’s Atlanta event on Sept. 30; to Lane Bailey for sending us info about REBarCamp on Oct. 1; to Brandy Nagel (@benang) for the info on TedxPeachtree; to Stephen Boyd for sharing more about the digital/social media track at the IABC conference.

 We knew this town was busy.

We’re big advocates of finding ways to visually tell people your stories. Why? Because most of us learn and retain information better when it’s presented visually (and reinforced with spoken word). Kelsey Ruger at Moleskin (@moleskin) has a great way of sharing the importance of visual story-telling.  To help those of us who might be art-challenged, Kelsey offers this terrific presentation on how to reconnect to the creative, drawing parts of your brain. Knowing their audience, they’ve laid it out in easy-to-understand, step-by-step process.  You know, for those of us who are more linear and left-brained. Or for any of us who ever got a “D” in art class.  Ahem.
Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I presented at the PRSA/GA Annual Conference in Atlanta, Ga.  This presentation to PR professionals focused on providing the basics of social media – definitions, demographics, and details – they would need to enhance/advance a company’s brand.  It was also the first time I debuted the new Prezi format, which won rave reviews from the audience.

What else would you add?

The importance of the visual story can never be underestimated and some might say, it’s more important than ever in today’s 24/7 world. 

Photographs do more than document history — they make it. At TED University, Jonathan Klein of Getty Images shows some of the most iconic, and talks about what happens when a generation sees an image so powerful it can’t look away — or back.

If you haven’t experience the phenomenon of Twitter chats, you’re missing out on excellent crowdsourced learning and sharing.  There are nearly 80 chats happening each week in topics ranging from agriculture to web journalists. We’ve put together a list of Twitter chats relating to our worlds – marketing, PR, social media, and business – all noted with their days and times.* While we’d love to list things like DesignChat (Wednesday, 8pm CT), we’re trying to stay focused and not list every chat we’d like to follow. 

 If you’re running your own business, or just trying to learn more about marketing/social media/pr you can follow the conversations, pose questions and participate. You can learn a lot to apply to your business.

Oh, and if you miss a chat at the time listed, you can also search by its hashtag for past conversations; many chat hosts will post summaries on their own blogs.

Feel free to share what chats you find worthwhile. If you just can’t get enough, you can find a full list of chats, by checking here.

*Times for chats are based on US time zones: ET is Eastern Time; CT is Central Time; PT is Pacific Time.