Quick Facts
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MEDIA NEEDLE’S GENERAL SOCIAL MEDIA GUIDELINES:
Media Needle makes every effort to follow social media best practices. The following are the guidelines to which all of our brand ambassadors are expected to adhere.
GUIDELINES:
These guidelines for social media conduct apply to our partners, independent contractors and other formally appointed team members. All public activities pertaining to blogs, forums, message boards, chat environments, wikis, social networks in general, virtual worlds, and micro-blogs such as twitter are subject to these guidelines.
Furthermore, non-public conduct such as email correspondences must be handled with professionalism, courtesy and tact. We seek to minimize any chances that anything be misconstrued and reflect negatively on Media Needle, our clients, yourself or anyone for that matter. The risks of not doing so are unforeseeable and can be very destructive. This should be clear to everyone involved.
Partners Guidelines [Bloggers, Webmasters, Forum Moderators etc.]
Media Needle supports transparency. During any outreach and engagement, we should ask all compensated partners such as bloggers, sites and forums to disclose their relationship to Media Needle. In addition, we need to follow up with compensated sites to determine if they have made appropriate disclosures and advise them to do so if they have neglected their responsibility. As a representative of Media Needle, either employee or independent contractor, you must disclose, during outreach or while engaging directly on sites, that you are working on behalf of Media Needle and/or Media Needle’s client(s).
Team Engagement Guidelines
Transparency
An honest representation of who we are and who and what we represent is part of our every communication. Media Needle takes pride in its clients and shares this pride with those it contacts and communicates with. Our good conduct on the client’s behalf is key. Finally, it is an element that helps bring something positive to the electric world that is social media. The transparent messenger is the good messenger.
Forethought
The matters being shared, discussed, emailed or posted must be consistent with the directives issued by client and/or the partners at Media Needle. The dissemination of such content is also subject to the ethics of Transparency as well as those nicely summarized at WOMMA. See: http://womma.org/ethics/ When in doubt or a situation arises, consultation with qualified members of the team and/or the client is de rigeur. We reflect carefully on our communications and the message; both literal and inferred that they convey.
Subject
As we execute our given task we are beholden to not misconstruing the message. We cannot be experts in everything and do not take liberties to distort the message and facts. We include language such as “I submit this to you to consider on behalf of fictional company xyz as part of the Media Needle team for consideration in your blog”. Internal discussions and memos not intended for the public must not be cited.
Tone
Despite rules, we like to keep this enjoyable. The online world is fascinating and seeing a properly communicated item take on a life of its own and get shared, viewed and commented on is exciting. The human touch can go a long way. A positive one can go further. Within reason we infuse personality and show an awareness for the environment we are interacting with, its members, their content and even consider interacting later via follow-up communications. We also enjoy the cause and effect result of quality level-headed discussion. This is an area where eloquence and creativity can enter the picture. This can generate fruitful Dialog. This dialog is there to monitor and nurture. It also affords us opportunities to observe word of mouth phenomenon that adds value to our services. Sometimes our content goes live without us being informed by the actual recipient of our outreach; it is out job to check back in case they have accepted our message without closing the circle of communications. If a discussion or correspondence gets antagonistic or volatile, please alert a supervisor to discuss solutions post haste.
Stay safe.
Always be sure that you are presenting a message that is accurate, in accordance with a project’s guidelines and in accordance with the directives of you supervisors and/or client. Feel free to discuss even the most seemingly minor matter if it is cause for doubt or concern.
When engaging recap
- Be transparent and honest about who you are and who you represent
- Be accurate with your message and content
- Be tactful and friendly
- Reflect before hitting “send” or “post”. Communicate to as you would want to be communicated to. Communicate to approved parties and communicate approved messaging.
- Be mindful of proprietary information and confidentiality concerns
- Errors occur. Please be quick to address them and consult with the team to remedy. Many environments allow for editing and partners such as bloggers can edit their content to comply. Having said that, prepare to monitor.