Implementing Social Media Community Guidelines

Every social network company establishes its own rules for using their service. The rules on interactive websites and apps are typically called “Terms of Service (TOS)” or “Terms of Use.” These rules, laid out in electronic documents or on web pages, are meant to manage the liability a company might have when they manage but can’t fully control how others use their online platforms. These rules can range from who owns the content published on their network to how members of each network should behave, what is allowed, and what is not allowed.

Your company should establish rules, guidelines, and policies for your online presences to define how your friends, fans, and followers should behave on your website or social network accounts. You should also establish internal rules, guidelines, and policies for your employees to help limit liability and minimize problems.

Before social media existed, the most common policies posted publicly on websites were privacy policies, security policies, and in the case of e-commerce, return policies. Privacy and security policies were created to address people’s concerns about how their personal identifying information and credit card data was being gathered, handled, and protected.

If you have a website where you ask visitors or customers to provide you with personal, identifying or financial information online or you allow them to post content that is visible to others, at a minimum you should establish a privacy policy to explain how you will use the data that is submitted, uploaded, or published. Keeping customer information private is a best practice in both ecommerce and social media.

You don’t have a great deal of control over what happens on your Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram accounts, or any social network for that matter. Carefully review the privacy and security policies of the social networks and apps where you set up accounts for your company. Learn what protections the host company offers you. See who owns the content that you – and others – post to the social network. Any company using social media is basically at the mercy of the social networks and their rules, so make sure you’re comfortable with their Terms of Service.

Developing Online Community Guidelines

Unless you’re hosting an online community or have your own online platform where others can publish and interact, you may not need an extensive Terms of Service (TOS), but you should have at least some community guidelines with some general information about your company’s intentions, policies, and other legal safeguards. Always consult your legal counsel when crafting these documents. 

Start by articulating what is acceptable and what is not acceptable behavior when others interact with your company online on the sites and networks that you manage, regardless of where they are hosted. Some unacceptable activities or behaviors you could include are harassment, hate speech, copyright infringement, and uploading or linking to pornographic material.

Spell out what will happen if someone doesn’t follow your rules. Will you give them a warning? Will you delete their post or comment? Will you ban them from the site? Note that every social network will either let you to ban someone from your Page or you may have to report individuals to the network’s customer support.

Here is an example of a statement of consequences for Community Guidelines:

We reserve the right to remove and block you from our online community if you are unable to “play nice.” We reserve the right to hide or delete a comment if it violates our Community Guidelines. We will be open to the valued members of our community as to why we do what we do when we are enforcing our guidelines.

Both your external and internal guidelines should be written in clear, easy-to-understand language rather than dense legalese. You can opt to link to more detailed documents composed or reviewed by your legal counsel.

Here are some examples of statements used in actual Community Guidelines:

Be kind. The Golden Rule applies here. We are looking for comments on content or issues, not individuals.

Be transparent. We don’t appreciate anonymous comments, however, will allow them if they follow The Golden Rule as we understand there are some valid reasons for maintaining anonymity.

Be truthful. We work hard to check our facts and tell you what we believe to be true. We ask that you do the same.

Don’t spam. If you come to our website, blog, or social networking presence to promote your company, service, or product, chances are we will remove the post unless it is relevant to the conversation and does so in a non-commercial fashion.

Post your guidelines to your website and link to them from the bio or about section in each social network. You could include an abbreviated version in post pinned to the top of your feed on some social networks along with a link. On your company website, add a link to all of your guidelines and policies in the footer of the site that can be accessed from any page

Internal Rules

When thinking about your internal guidelines and policies for your staff, don’t discount the value of your team participating in social media on behalf of your company. Instead of forbidding social media use by employees, educate them and provide clear rules in your Employee Handbook for them to follow. Specify who is allowed to publish content on your company’s behalf and how each team member can interact on social networks during business hours.

Your internal rules should reflect or complement your external rules, customized for your team members, for example:

Be truthful. Honesty is the best policy. Do your best to check facts, be accurate, and above all, tell the truth. When in doubt, consult your supervisor.

Be kind. Do not make disparaging remarks about others or about the company. Even if you are being critical about a product, a service, or a company, do so in a constructive and respectful manner.

Be aware. Behave as if everyone is watching, because chances are they are. Be thoughtful about what you say and what you upload online. Even if you delete it, always assume there is still a copy somewhere..

You can’t expect your online community members to adhere to rules if your own team ignores them.

Consulting a lawyer is the safest way to ensure your policies and guidelines are appropriate and effective. You can do some of the legwork first by finding templates and examples on the web as a starting point. Then get your legal counsel to review the documents before posting them online.