We don’t believe in policies at Hootville, particularly for social media so how about some rules of thumb; guidelines, rules of engagement instead?
1. Use social media as a cheap, quick way to communicate.
2. Get together for one hour and agree on the topics about which you will and won’t post content. Hint: content should not be about your issues and audiences; not just you.
3. In the same one hour agree who can and cannot tweet or post to Facebook directly and who needs to get a quick OK before going live. Yes – you MUST have several people who are cleared for approval-free access to Twitter and Facebook.
4. Add some humour and humanity – this should no be optional but a POLICY. Those who think that is not possible for their issue should get over themselves. You don’t have to be doing knock-knock jokes – just sound like a person. Check out the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ recent efforts. Gold.
5. Be interesting and useful. Similarly, this should be a POLICY.
6. Deal with public criticism via social media networks via your social media networks.
7. This is how the unauthorised should get approval. “Hey boss I want to post a link to this article about the NDIS and ask people for comments. Is that cool?”
8. If someone writes something totally inappropriate delete the content ASAP and explain to everyone why the content was not Kosher.
9. Wait for sky to fall in.
10. Book Online Savvy 101.
Yep. The census tweets are great. Perfectly pitched.
Choose writers who are capable of checking their work for typos and poor grammar.