Archive for the ‘social media policy’ Category

Jun

2011

08

Category:

Organizational Culture, social media policy

Tags:

7 Comments

Orchestras, Musicians, The Concert Experience, and Social Media

I’ve been at the League of American Orchestras Conference.  Yesterday, I had the pleasure of co-facilitating a half-day “Digital Strategies” seminar with Vince Ford, Director of Digital Media from the New York Philharmonic and leading a peer session for major orchestra marketing staff and youth orchestra executive directors with Makala Johnson who does Social Media for the Mayo Clinic.

This posts shares a few insights.

I always use sticky notes or index cards to get people to ask questions before, during, and after a workshop.  It gives me feedback on the content, plus it help me generate content.   The question above came up and I posted it on my Facebook page to generate more insights.

How do we motivate musicians to create content?

The question came up in the context of discussing “We don’t have anytime to do social media.”   How can you get others in your organization to participate and contribute content, including musicians?   This can be sensitive issue for some orchestras at particular times.   Also, it requires adding the words “social media” to any professional conduct language or a social media policy.

Some orchestras have been successful doing this by working with musicians who serve on the orchestra’s marketing committee and already understand or use social media personally.

Here’s some of the advice that came through Facebook:

It takes a while to motivate the musicians, because they are busy people and often on the road away from internet. They don’t often see what you are doing in social media and therefore can feel apart from it. To encourage them to use their valuable free time to create content you have to first demonstrate that it’s worth doing. Something that worked for me in raising awareness is to send a weekly email digest of responses from across all our social networks, to show the level of interest and engagement out there. Also, don’t expect everyone to want to be involved. Spend time finding the right musicians for the job. – Jo Johnson  (London Symphony)

They have to understand the value to them personally to do so, and also not feel they are being taken advantage of. What do they get out of it? How will you insure them that you will not abuse them? – Rebecca Krause-Hardie

Determine the content they can provide. Outline it. They may respond well to photos that show their personal side, while engaging fans in silly banter because that’s their personality or videos of performance. -  Charlene Burke

How do you “police” your employees use of social media?

The above question was posed to Makala Johnson from the Mayo Clinic after she shared some insights about this large nonprofit institution with over 50,000 employees encourages all employees to participate.    Her response:  “We don’t have time for that.”   The follow up question was, “Was there ever a time when employees used social media “unprofessionally” or caused a problem?”

Makala paused for a minute or two and answered,  “No.”

The reason is that they have a good policy in place that talks lays out a philosophy and operationalizes effective social media practice.  Makala also noted that her job is about consulting and training people in the organization to use social media effectively.   Their approach to staffing — they’ve found that it works best for adoption to have social media tasks integrated into job descriptions.

User Experience Integration

Vince Ford offered a framework for creating a digital strategy (social media is one channel in that mix that falls under engagement.)      During the seminar, he offers lots of nuggets of wisdom and learnings from the New York Philharmonic’s experience.   We were also lucky to have Margo Drakos from Instant Encore who shared some amazing insights about integrating mobile and live streaming into the experience.

Vince’s “User Experience” cycle is a useful framework to brainstorm when and where to integrate digital tools, including social media.    Asking the question, “Where does social media add value?” in the different points in the experience.   Vince noted that their concert-goers are most open to engagement right after the performance – with email open rates soaring to 80%.    I pointed to the Jo Johnson and the London Symphony’s Facebook page as an excellent example of engaging audiences before and after concerts.

Integrating Social Media: Before, During, and After The Concert Experience

I shared this video from Jason Hodges about how their clever approach to reminding patrons to turn off their cell phones at the start of a concert, but still generate some engagement on their social media channels.  This prompted some debate as to whether or not patrons will really turn off their cell phones to avoid disrupting the sacred concert experience.

It is a challenge for many orchestras.     Is “live tweeting” during a concert in the formal concert hall the best way to integrate social into the concert experience?  Some venues have a strict rules about this, not matter how much it annoys some patrons. ((hat tip Marc Van Bree)  The midway ground is to experiment in less formal concert venues, like outdoor concerts, non-concert events, designate “social media moments,” or have a sign or kiosk in the lobby to get feedback.     The Smithsonian Museum does this as part of getting patron feedback on exhibits.

Orchestras face significant challenges these days – attracting younger people to classical music concerts, affordable ticket prices, and the disruption caused by social and mobile media.   This is fertile ground for experiments and learning best practices.

Decks and Links here


May

2011

25

Category:

E-Mediat, Privacy, social media policy

Tags:

4 Comments

Privacy and Security on Social Networks

A colleague recently shared this video that pokes fun of  the  “always on, gotta share everything on social networks” lifestyle for many people here in America.  It is a serious issue for professionals here in the US, especially if  they work in education or youth service nonprofits.    In many places in the world,  sharing everything online can be a life and death matter particularly for activists working in certain countries.

For the curriculum we’re developing for the  E-Mediat project, a social media capacity project for NGOs in the Arab World,  you can’t train NGOs on effective use of social media without addressing issues of privacy and security.   This past month,  I took a deep dive looking at the privacy and security how-to guides available.    I thought I’d share (couldn’t resist) and summarize some of what I learned here.

There are two particularly useful guides (both available in other languages including Arabic).   They are Security in a Box and Protecting Your Security Online.    Both guides are  written for citizens in the Middle East and North Africa who want to use technology safely to communicate, organize, and share data, but the tips and recommendations are useful for anyone working for a nonprofit who needs to mindful about privacy.   Here’s a curated collection of  privacy tutorials for NGOs  here.

Privacy

Social networking sites like Facebook make it easy for sensitive information about us to be made public unintentionally.   Therefore, it is important to understand how to best protect one’s own privacy as well as others. Tactical Technology’s Security in A Box suggests asking a couple of good reflective questions about your account on any online social networking platform where you set up a presence:

  • Who can access the information I am putting online?
  • Who controls and owns the information I put into a social networking site?
  • What information about me are my contacts passing on to other people?
  • Will my contacts mind if I share information about them with other people?
  • Do I trust everyone with whom I’m connected?

Publishing content on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms has become a requirement for NGOs that want a presence and to participate on social channels.   However, they should not rely on a social platform as the single host for their information.   First, it is very easy for governments to block access and it can happen without warning.  Also,  some social networking sites may remove objectionable content themselves, rather than face a censorship battle .   There are also other reasons to avoid publishing all your content on social sites.

Be careful about sharing too much information in your status updates – even if you trust your “friends.”  In the United States,  sharing too much information has resulted in  burglaries.    It is easy for someone to copy status information.    Most social networks allow automatically cross posting  information with other social networks.  For example your tweets can be automatically shared on your Facebook account.   You may be intentionally sharing sensitive information from one channel to another.  Plus, it isn’t a good practice for inspiring engagement.

Some social network platforms, like Facebook,  make assumptions about your privacy intentions.  Some assume that you want to share your information publicly and this is reflected in the the “default” settings which are overly complex.     Whenever you set up an account, make sure you understand the ins and out of privacy settings.      On the  site Open Book you can search Facebook and understand what is open. You can also use Reclaim Privacy, a browser tool that helps you adjust your Facebook privacy settings, although I encountered a few glitches.

Security

The AccessNow Guide offers some critical basic tips for protecting security on free hosted email services like Google’s Gmail and Hotmail, both offers something called end-to-end encryption (HTTPS) which makes using them secure.     More advice on keeping email communication, see Security in a Box tip sheet and for specifics regarding Gmail see the  security check list and Hotmail’s guide.   This FireFox plugin called HTTPS Everywhere is handy.

Normally, voice communication over the Internet is no more secure than unprotected email and instant messaging. Only Skype and Gizmo offer encryption for voice conversations, and then only if you are calling another VoIP user, as opposed to a mobile or landline telephone.  See Security in a Box tip sheet for more options.

Be careful when accessing your social network account in public internet spaces. Delete your password and browsing history when using a browser on a public machine in an Internet cafe.  See Security in A Box: How to destroy sensitive information.

Access social networking sites using https:// to safeguard your username, password and other information you post. Using https:// rather than http:// adds another layer of security by encrypting the traffic from your browser to your social networking site. See Security in A Box: How to remain anonymous and bypass censorship on the internet.

 

Always make sure you use secure passwords to access social networks and your email.  If anyone else does get into your account, they are gaining access to a lot of information about you and about anyone else you are connected to via that social network. Change your passwords regularly as a matter of routine. See  Security in A Box:  How to create and maintain secure passwords for more information.

Here are some tips from AccessNow Guide on how to create strong passwords:

  • Think of a phrase, rather than a single word.
  • Make your passphrases twelve or more characters long; this makes it harder to crack using various software programs.
  • Use a combination of symbols, numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters. One way is to include symbols and numbers for words and letters in a passphrase, which can be a saying or a line from a song or poem.
  • Don’t use the same password for every account; if your password is easily intercepted when inputted online in a place that doesn’t offer HTTPS, it’s easy to intercept your log-in information and use it to access your other accounts.
  • Change your passwords every 3 months or more often if you use internet cafe systems or computers other than your own.
  • If you have problems remembering passwords, use a secure encrypted program like KeePass to keep track of them.
  • Some accounts are compromised via lost password recovery systems. Be sure your security questions and answers for your accounts are not simple and easy to guess.

You can test the strength of your password using this online test.

Mobile phones can also have security and privacy risks.  Security in a Box has an extensive set of guides on how to make sure that your mobile phone is safe.

One of the challenges of protecting privacy and security online is that the technology changes quickly and we need to be vigilant and educated.    But the basic steps as reflected by the advice above can go a long way.

How are protecting your privacy on social networks?  What resources have you found useful?

 

Update:  Great Privacy Checklists

May

2011

19

Category:

Organizational Culture, social media policy

Tags:

21 Comments

Facebook, Nonprofits, and Youth Programs: Safety and Privacy Issues

Yesterday, Holly Ross at NTEN, mentioned that a common question she gets after talking about Social Media with nonprofits is from organizations that work with students or young people and are concerned about liability issues surrounding what students who “like” their page may post on their page, or on their own walls.   I’ve also gotten similar questions, particularly about whether or not it is “safe” for the organization (and the young people) to post photos on Facebook.

Earlier this week, I met Beatric Ramos who does social media for Alum Rock Counseling, an organization that works with youth on a range of counseling and mentoring programs.   She maintains the organization’s Facebook Page.  I asked her this question on the video above.

Beatrice says that a social media policy spelling this out is essential.    She recognizes that photos of the kids are important to share because it makes the story of their programs come alive, but they want to do it safely.   As part of their policy,  parents sign a release at the beginning of the year that gives her organization to share all photos.

When she takes photos and posts on social media channels, she uses these common sense guidelines:

  • Doesn’t take photos of kids if clothing identifies their school (e.g. wearing a school t-shirt)
  • Doesn’t take photos that identify their school name or recognizable landmark
  • Takes mostly group photos but often will take the photo so it doesn’t show their face, but the back of their head or back lit so the face is not easily recognizable
  • Never includes the names of the kids on the photos or tags them on Facebook
  • On a field trip, will take a group photo, but from far away

They have never had an inappropriate comment on their Facebook Wall from students, but have clear posting guidelines and a social media policy in place that provides education.

What are your best tips for social media policy and guidelines for nonprofits that serve young people?

Nov

2010

17

Category:

Conferences, social media policy

Tags:

5 Comments

Social Media and Governance: Reflections from BoardSource

Board source

View more presentations from Beth Kanter.

Last week, I had the honor of doing a mini workshop at the annual BoardSource Conference called “Governing the Networked Nonprofit in An Age of Social Media” where I had an opportunity to share some ideas on social media culture, transparency, and simplicity from the Networked Nonprofit, co-authored with Allison Fine.   I did a book raffle at the end of the session and Tara Veliz and Alex Hildesvend were the lucky winners.

Book Winners: Tara Veliz and Alex Hildesvend

With almost 100 people in the room, I started the session asking folks to shout out the first two words that came to mind when they thought about social media.    As expected,  I heard two themes – words that describe the power and benefits of social media and those that articulate very real concerns.

Privacy, security, and liability came up more frequently than in other sessions I’ve done which is not surprising that this group represented board members and CEOs of nonprofits and foundations.    And, they’re issues not to be taken lightly.  What surprised me though, was the share pair report out exercise, “What are the conversation starters about concerns that your organization needs to have to build a social media policy?”  I was surprised that most of the topics were tactical and how to questions.  Perhaps I didn’t ask the question well.

I started the social culture discussion with a story describing an Twitter and board meeting experiment I did back in 2008.   This was a board for a private girls school just beginning to discuss social media in their marketing and communications.   Part of the meeting featured the students themselves sharing how they used these tools.  I did some live demonstrations including Twitter and Flickr.    I posted a photo of them on Flickr and asked people on Twitter to share why they thought it was a valuable.    We got 100 comments 5 minutes from nonprofit and other  professionals sharing why they thought it was valuable.  It was dramatic.

This lead me to ask:

Will board meetings of the future allow us to reach out to professional networks and get real-time advice and input for decision-making?

The last chapter of the Networked Nonprofit is on networked governance.  We thought this would be an easy part of the book to write – all we’d have to do is find examples of how boards online, opening up decision-making to outside influences.   There were no examples – so the last chapter of the book is speculative, based on the best thinking of the people who have looked at networked governance.  I dreamed up some scenarios of boards and social media in practice based on my experience in 2008.

Later in the workshop, some very important policy discussion issues came up from the group.     These are very real and serious issues that need to be discussed as part of policy development, training, and strategy development.   On the later,  the question of audience and objective and whether social media is the right channel needs to be clearly articulated.     This a tricky tightrope for social social agencies that provide programs in domestic violence or work with youth.  There is  a fine line between the need to engage in social media to some degree and staying to true to a mission.    It needs to be a very slow, intentional discussion.

Here were some of the questions:

These are concerns about the privacy, safety, and legal liability.

#1 We work for a domestic violence shelter and we are terrified to have a Facebook Page because we fear that someone might post someone’s photo and put a client in danger.   (That someone includes perps or staff making a mistake)

#2 We have a suicide prevention program where people call and we’re terrified that someone will post a note on our Facebook page saying they are going to take their own life – and they post this in the middle of a night on a weekend.  Do we need to be monitoring our FB page 24/7 (we don’t have the capacity to do that!)

#3 We are a youth summer program. I work directly with youth and it more efficient for me to keep in touch with kids via FB page versus getting them on the phone or email. What type of policy is needed related to me having contact with them on FB?

I don’t have answers to these questions, but if the organizations want to use social media they definitely need solid social media policies which doesn’t happen quickly.      Strategy is important as well – since social media would obviously be directed at external audiences like donors or activists, not for service delivery.   Although there are risks, the more community building that happens perhaps increases the chances that the community can help with monitoring.   The happens in other online communities around negative comments, but here we are talking about more serious risks (physical harm to someone)

In the example of a suicide prevention program,  there are automated monitoring tools that might be deployed, although these are up and coming tools.  I’m not sure that an automated technology solution alone is enough.  It also made me wonder about how you could parallel what happens in other channels, like the phone.   Are phone volunteers trained and certified?  Is there 24 hour coverage?  Could this be done on Facebook or other public social media channels?  I’m not suggested this as an immediate solution, but should be part of the discussion.

Also, I think the discussion needs to look at the opportunity costs of not participating – which could be the right strategy.

As I said, I don’t have the answers here.  I’m very curious to hear from folks who work in agencies where service delivery has these very real and sensitive issues around privacy, protection, and liability.    Here are my questions:

  • Have you used social media as part of your communications or program delivery?  How?  How did you plan for privacy, security, and minimize risks?
  • Did you look at the opportunity cost of not using social media?  What did you learn?
  • How has your agency addressed these issues in your social media policy?
  • Any other insights, ideas, or tips to share?