5 April 2010
Week 12 – A fine line…
Apologies for the delay, I had a bit of a breakdown on Sunday morning, when my MacBookPro suffered from multiple kernel panics. Still a bit unstable – I’ll have to do a bit of a system overhaul in the next 24 hours so I can actually *do* my final projects.
One of *my* policies: BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP.
I’ve deal with moderating forums, and as much as I believe in passive administration and allowing the public to voice whatever they wish without interference, I believe in having some sort of structure, a mission statement, a collective vision so that an institution/group has a guideline to follow. This is not only for protection, but also a ‘manual’ to turn to – for both the public AND the institution.
The KEY is to have a well-thought out policy… Not a mishmash of other policies in hopes to cover EVERYTHING – but a set of guidelines that are clear and hopefully *common sense* to staff and patrons.
Lauby’s articles offer excellent points to consider for and when developing policies. I, too, understand to be authentic and to bring value while being aware, protective, and smart about what is posted. In this day and age, social media plays a huge part in our communication. What sets this type of correspondence apart from the past formats is a permanence on the internet. If you aren’t willing to say it out loud (as in scream it from the top of a tall building and be filmed on broadcast television while a plane skywrites your name behind you) or to someone’s face, then it may not be the best idea to put it online!
So… Issues:
– Self-monitoring: What happens when something offensive or someone being malicious isn’t reported until it’s too late? Or something is reported frequently but unjustified? There are many well-intentioned sites and forums that have been quickly ruined by one comment sparking flame wars. As a passive moderator, it is very difficult to prevent anything from happening in an open forum. How do we handle a potentially volatile situation? Policy may help but more importantly the moderations and administration has a crucial role in this situation. As demonstrated by the Nestle Facebook debacle, some clear thought into guidelines and a perhaps less-volatile employee may have at least not exacerbated the situation.
- Avoiding unwanted associations: Though David Lee King brings up a good point about being aware of the elements that may accompany free social media services before creating a profile and avoiding undesirable advertisements. These services are free to the users but come at a different sort of price. This isn’t something that I think employees of an institution can avoid especially when dealing with free services like Facebook, but I do take comfort in the fact that audiences can discern that the embedded ads are automatically generated from the service and not the institution.
Using policies to measure effectiveness is absolutely a valuable tool. Setting goals, measuring attributes (as outlined by Owyang) will no doubt help streamline efforts, but more importantly, as librarians of the future, we need to be able to interpret the data collected qualitative and quantitative.
Armano’s article about Best Buy’s hiring qualifications for the direct of emerging media position was an eye-opener; I certainly hope that most institutions understand that friends & followers are not the measure they should be using. Quality vs. Quantity is going to help garner those followers. With out something of value, the effectiveness of the social media tool is pointless.
Jenny Levine from The Shifted Librarian’s statement about private accounts is also eye opening… Her personal goals and approach towards Twitter are great and the Twitter issues she outlines are useful to know.
Digging a bit further into the Owyang article Crisis Planning: Prepare Your Company For Social Media Attacks I came across a few links of interest:
- Here’s the whiteboard of *how* Nestle could have handled the situation from Owyang and crew.
- A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media… Lessons to learn from other companies.
- A way to approach social media with staff… How to unleash empowered workers without creating chaos: The HERO Compact
The Nestle Facebook meltdown is unfortunate as are all the social media snafus that companies are making as we speak. How much is too much interaction? How can companies react when they are attacked through social media? These are all lessons to learn.
Tagged social media, social software
dorothy says:
backup backup backup! I hope your computer worries are over! nothing worse than not having your computer functional!
That’s the thing about social media: things happen in real time, and what happens when something goes wrong/something incorrect/bad is posted? People notice things when they happen, and it’s important to have some policy or approach in place on how to deal with these tough situations.