Companies are coming to terms with the growth and use of Social Media within and without their organisations and some of the companies that I deal with are grappling with its implications and how to use it in a positive way.

Currently only 29% of companies have a Social Media Policy, so I thought it would be good to put together a list of resources that would assist the other 71% to create one.

Firstly, What is a social media policy? Very simply without getting too complicated

“A social media policy outlines for employees the corporate guidelines or principles of communicating in the online world”.

Why Have a Social Media Policy?

According to Eric B. Meyer, who’s an Associate in the Labor and Employment Group of Dilworth Paxson LLP, what companies should consider from a legal perspective in developing a social media policy are.

• “Employers need to be upfront with employees that they have no right to privacy with respect to social networking. “Employers reserve the right to monitor employee use of social media regardless of location (i.e. at work on a company computer or on personal time with a home computer).”
• Employees “should be made aware that company policies on anti-harassment, ethics and company loyalty extend to all forms of communication (including social media) both inside and outside the workplace.” People need to remember that bashing your organization/boss/co-workers online can lead to consequences at work.”
  

1. 10 Must Haves For A Social Media Policy – Courtesy of Sharlyn Lauby

She says -”Whether you’re writing your social media policy from the get-go, or letting it develop organically in reaction to situations as they arise, here are 10 things you should definitely consider. These 10 tips will help you steer clear of pitfalls and allow you to focus on what’s important: engaging the customer.”

2. IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines

In the spring of 2005, IBMers used a wiki to create a set of guidelines for all IBMers who wanted to blog. These guidelines aimed to provide helpful, practical advice—and also to protect both IBM bloggers and IBM itself, as the company sought to embrace the blogosphere. Since then, many new forms of social media have emerged. So we turned to IBMers again to re-examine our guidelines and determine what needed to be modified. The effort has broadened the scope of the existing guidelines to include all forms of social computing.

3. 117 Social Media Policies – By Social Media Governance

Here is a list of and access to, social policies and protocols from organisations with documents rivalling “War and Peace” to light and brief.

• American Red Cross – NGO
• Australian Public Service Commission – Government Agency
• Harvard Law School – Legal
• Baker and Daniels – rather brief but well written with a dash of humour

4. Enterprise: List of 40 Social Media Staff Guidelines – by Laurel Papworth

She says “This list also includes policies called; Staff blogging policies, enterprise social network guidelines, Employee Blogging Policies, Staff engagement in online communities, and so on. I’ve done a few press (radio, print) interviews this week re: Telstra so I thought I should have another look at how Enterprise, Government, Corporates, Not for Profits  are handling the fact that their staff are members of social networks too”

5. Corporate Top 10 Social Media Guidelines – from Todd Defren’s Blog

He covers how corporate employees’ participation in Social Media can be dealt with and managed in a way that liberates them — without putting the company at risk.

So , what is revealing is that  a lot of common sense .. which is what a good policy is based upon, certainly seems to prevail through most of the social media policies, though the length of the policies can vary from the sublime to the adventurous.

What were your challenges in creating a Social Media Policy for your organisation?

 Social Media has been in the news a lot, about how it can be used by business to make profits. What is quite often not realised, is that social media can be utilised to enable non profits and charities to raise money for good causes because NGO’s are all about community, and this raises passion and involvement. Some non profits have worked out early that the power and passion that social media evokes in people can be harnessed for the good.  Other NGO’s have taken a bit longer to realise that social media can be harnessed effectively because it doesn’t cost money it just takes time, a lot of the supporters of charities and non profits are more than happy to spend the time, devoted to helping their favourite charity make a difference. So to help those supporters on the learning curve here are some tips and examples to get you inspired and started. 

“ 20 Social Media Tips and Techniques for Charities, Non-profits, & Philanthropies ” by “Creative Fusion Media” throws a lot of different resources together to assist Non Profits to learn about and use social media, for their causes.

 Nine of my Favourites in this blog include

1. Create a Niche . Oceana’s blog shows great use of dividing their blog into the specific issues and campaigns they deal with, so that you can very quickly see what the causes are about on the very first page
2. Listen, Read and Learn productively using  Google alerts and/or Google reader is a great way to access information. Check out Nonprofit Alltop and Fundraising Alltop to check out what kinds of content does well and to hear interesting new and relevant non-profit news.
3.  Use Social Media Photos. Get a profile on Flickr and create a group for your staff and supporters.
4. Get a social media crash course. Chris Brogan’s Fish Where the Fish Are is a great ebook and a quick read that can help introduce you and your team to social media.
5.  Make it Delicious. Del.icio.us social bookmarking is a great productivity and organizational tool. You can also use it to share info with coworkers, collegues, and funders. The tagging function allows you to separate, segment, and organize your web research and data.
6.  Utilise Blogs such as  WordPress and Typepad to keep the faithful informed, with the latest news and information and resources
7.  Using Twitter For Generating, Managing and Informing Followers for The Cause.  Check out Guy Kawasaki’s tips on getting more Twitter followers,  Tweetdeck helps you manage it, and Darren Rowse’s blog Twit Tip educates you all about twitter and being a better twitterer (is that the word? Perhaps a better twitter citizen, or twitter-zen)
8.  Make Your Own Network or “Tribe”. Make Your Own Social network on Ning. A great example is the Classroom 2.0 group. It only takes 60 seconds.
9.  Using PR to promote the Cause Using Social Media Of course I mean personal relations (as arcane, trite, or banal as that might sound). You can also network on Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out or Wanna Press  (this service just started, so there may be hiccups).

And of course log into one of the top bloggers in the world (Beth Kanter) and she just happens have a blog about non profits which I personally use for inspiration.

Beth’s Non Profit Powerpoint Presentations are on Slideshare

So to wrap it up, once you have learnt some of these skills, you can use it to raise money for your non profit or favourite charity. To inspire you, here is a Post from Mashable by Gradon Tripp that shows how “5 Events That Have Used Social Media for a Good Cause” raise nearly $300,000

But, what we’ve also seen, is social media bringing together people to lend their time to important causes on a global level. By using the sites we LIVE on every day (don’t tell me you haven’t realized you’ve been spending about 30% of your day tweeting)–why not use all of these friends and followers to do something good?

While many people have ideas to start a charitable program or event, actually doing something isn’t as easy. There is planning, event scouting, logistics, food, drink—you name it, it’s tough. Typically, this process can take weeks or months to come together. But, with the help from online communities this process can become even easier, and the results can be nearly instantaneous.

See how (got to love some of these names) Twestival, Tweetsgiving, Tweetathon, Well Wishing and “The Daniella Project” used Twitter to motivate organise and open the pockets of people who cared.

So tell me, what are some of your stories that you can share on how you have used social media for your charity or good cause?

Here are some of the best blogs and posts that I came upon last week on my web journey, that I managed to tweet about. I hope you find them useful and enlightening 

1. “How Companies and Non Profits are Monetizing Social Media”

This article by Laurel Papworth  is about the various social media monetization strategies and the powerpoint presentation (embedded) shows some case studies and examples, including social network size, the revenue streams, valuations and profits.

2. ” 10 Twitter Best Practices For Non Profits ”

This Blog by DIOSA Communications discusses how non profits who are most successful at utilizing social networking Web sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace and how they know from trial, error, and experience that a “marketing and development approach” on social networking sites does not work.

It’s about community building around your mission and programs. Just having profile on Twitter (or MySpace, or Facebook) does not magically produce any results. You have to work these profiles. Find the person on your staff who loves Web 2.0 and enjoys working the sites and/or find a marketing/pr intern from your local university that needs to do a senior project! If they are getting college credit, then you know they have to stay around for at least a semester.

3. “8 Non Profit CEO’s That Tweet”  

Beth Kanter reveals some good advice and  insights along with 8 Non Profit CEO’s that tweet

Recently, BusinessWeek published a slideshow of CEO’s who use Twitter, noting the dramatic rise of CEO’s who use Twitter to clue customers in on new services, help them with questions about their products, and generally get a little bit personal with customers, business associates, and the public.

There are some other benefits to having your nonprofit’s CEO be on Twitter, these might include:

• Source of news
• Brand Building
• Focus Group/Research
• Networking Tool
• Monitoring
• Drive Traffic to web site
• Humanizing your communications

Of course, if your CEO is going to Twitter, they have to be keep a consistent schedule and be authentic.    There’s been a bit of debate about celebrity Twitter users who have “ghost” twitterers or simply people helping them tweet.

She did a brief scan to see if there any nonprofit CEOs who Twitter.  Here’s a few that she found:

4. ”26 Great Social Media Presentations For Non Profits”

This post by Rebecca Leaman lists 26 great new presentations on social media with more coming out almost daily, now that we’re deep into conference season, and many are directed specifically to the needs of non-profits. If you’ve been thinking of launching or expanding your organization in social media, Slideshare is a good starting point for information and advice. But it can be time-consuming to pick through a wide range of slideshows to find those that are up-to-date, actionable, and appropriate to nonprofits.

Here’s a hand-picked selection of presentations to get you started.

5. ” 7 Tips For Effective Call to Action – For Your Web Site or Blog”

This Blog by “Hubspot” highlights 7 tips on a calls to action and how nearly every website should have a goal and some action they want their visitors to take. The goal may be to generate leads, buy products, click on ads or even just subscribe to an RSS feed.

A call-to-action is the copy or graphic you use to entice and persuade your readers to take that action. Well-designed calls to action can dramatically increase a site’s rate of conversion to its goal.

So what’s a well-designed call to action? Here are 7 Tips.

The use of Social Media and its role in helping Charities and Not For Profit Organisations engage with their community is becoming very evident. I was talking to Fi Bendall the other day who has worked in this area extensively, including Amnesty International Australia and Earth Hour Global and below is a snap shot of her findings.

“The impact of social media, from blogs, to video, to the rise of user-generated content has been widely reported. The impact of the social web on society has had a major impact on how the public are addressing global problems, and how citizens are becoming social activists to raise money and support for social causes through the power of social media.

Online sites, such as Kiva.Org, Causes on Facebook, DonorsChoose and Change.org have been pioneers in the way humanity views philanthropy and activism, as well as how many individuals go about trying to improve life on our planet. Online social activism has become a sector bound together by a growing critical mass, in online usership, online community with an expanding acceptance in the worlds of philanthropy, politics, activism and marketing.

The online world is always “turned on” and always “connected” and delivers results, for example:

The US 2008 presidential campaign generated tens of millions in contributors supporting candidates, in particular the social media campaign by Obama being the most famous. Kiva.Org, a not-for-profit start up uses social networking to direct loans from everyday people to small-scale entrepreneurs in the developing world. It grew from zero to more than 270,000 leaders in less than three years making loans of $26,149,810 USD. DonorsChoose, hot-housed in a Bronx public school just after the year 2000 delivered more than $25million USD to school teachers. GlobalGiving a not-for-profit founded in 2002, has funnelled more than $6million USD to 900 projects around the world. Cause on Facebook leveraged social networks most popular hub, to sign up 12 million supporters and raise $2.5 million USD for various causes.

People have the ability to get vocal, be part of a solution and lobby governments in a way they never have before. Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans sent the online social community into a frenzy of donations, missing persons posting and consequentially firing up American society’s horror and sheer anger at the latency of their governments response to the disaster. The online call to action became so loud that the Bush Administration had to make a public announcement on the issues of getting aid into the State so late. The online social environment is a fertile ground for fast-moving social activism, allowing for an individuals charitable involvement that is both personal and open to the world. Together through social connections, Ben Rattray, founder of Change.org calls them the “mega-public” a vast inter-connected army of people, who at least in part, want to change the world.

Of late, Australia’s own natural disaster, the Victorian Bushfires is still generating a mention every 9 minutes online as the author types, within 24 hours of the major centre of the fires hitting, tens of thousands of people joined a supporters group on Facebook, millions in donations were generated through Twitter and Tweetfestivals alone.

Social media has allowed for “self-organisation” and it delivers online social activism, non-profit fundraising, connected social entrepreneurship, political organising, flash causes and digital philanthropy. It overlaps into the larger world of organised charity and non-profits of politics and policy organisation and changes them. Millions are using social networks to raise money, push for votes, bring attention to some cause, big or small, that will make the world a better place. It is important to note that the most successful organisations using the social media channel are the ones who adjust their business and social models as they go along to keep in tune with the online highly emotive community chatter.

Social Media Audiences and Social Causes

There are distinctive differences emerging between the generations online, that any social media cause campaign should consider, in terms of content and strategy.

• 12-24 year olds – To their generation they live online, their causes are online and there is no separation between virtual and reality. They wear “the badge” even if their donations are the smallest of other demographic groups to make a statement.
• 24- 55 year olds – The most likely group to pass a message on, get vocal and behind a message, they will collaborate to move the wider collective group into making an action.
• 60 years old plus – The fastest growing audience online in Australia today and are recorded as being the most similar to the “tech savvy” as the younger audience demographic.

Sources: Mckinsey; Nielson; Audit Bureau of Circulation Au.

Social Media Demographic and Insights
Courtesy of the following Foundations: The Columbus Foundation, The Saint Paul Foundation and The San Francisco Foundation.
The analysis of social media power users revealed the group was younger than the traditional composition of donors one would find in a charity’s database. Forty-seven percent were aged 30-49, 40 percent were under the age of 30, and only 13 percent were 50 or older. Almost two thirds (62 percent) were female.

• 30 years and younger were not a high dollar donor generation: Only 4 percent donated $5,000 or greater in 2008, and only 11 percent donated more than $1,000.
• 20 percent of those between the ages of 30-49 gave more than $5,000 and 41 percent gave $1,000 or more, demonstrating potential for higher dollar contributions.
• 50 years and older, 47 percent gave more than $5,000 and 66 percent gave $1,000 or greater.
• The rest of the analysis focused on the 30-49 and over 50 age brackets as they represent the greatest opportunity for online cultivation of high dollar donors.
• 30-49 age brackets and the over 50 bracket have used social media to discuss philanthropy.
• 84 percent of the social media savvy aged 30-49 and 55 percent of those older than 50 used conversational media for these purposes.

N ote: This confirms social media is a potential growth area through which major donors can be cultivated.

Some of the statistics that show that “Trust” in social media is significant among social media savvy would-be donors.

Sixty one percent of those aged 30-49 trust social networks and blogs to provide important information, as is the case with 44 percent of those 50 years or older.

With 30-49 year olds, social media use is also very high with
* 91 percent of users participating in social networks
* 81 percent participating in blogs
* 56 percent participating in message boards.

Among those 50 and older
* 94 percent participate in social networks
*78 percent participate in blogs
* 60 percent participate in message boards.

Of all the forms of social media used by 30-49-year-olds, “only social networks and blogs received greater than 40 percent rankings” for “trust.” Specifically, 66 percent trust social networks and 50 percent trust blogs. In the over 50 bracket, 62 percent trust social networks and 42 percent trust blogs.

One of the most interesting learning’s from this data was that both the social media savvy groups in the 30-49 age bracket and the over 50′s prefer social media, with Blogs being the second most trusted source.
Whether for personal use or trust in third party sites, blogs represent the second most viable source of information next to social networks (among both the digital rich and the traditional brackets). After blogs, message boards, forums, wikis and review sites were all deemed more credible than videos or podcasts.

Social media savvy respondents demonstrate a significant opportunity for NGO’s to provide social media. Among 30-49 year olds, 81 percent said they would participate if the information was highly credible and of strong quality, and 77 percent said they would participate if it came from a trusted source. Even more telling, 86 percent of those 50 and older said they would participate if the information was highly credible and of strong quality, and 84 percent would participate if social media came from a trusted source.”

In the next post we will cover some of the processes involved in creating “Social Media Strategies”.