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I wrote in a report back in 2004, that companies should have a blogging policy to provide guidelines for employees who want to have blogs. This primarily relates to employee's personal blogs and lays out the guidelines of what the company expects. As expected, policies will vary greatly depending on company circumstance. Here are a few examples of corporate blogging policies and also, my variation.

If you have additional examples of corporate social media policies, please email me at list@altimetergroup.com.

Sample Corporate Blogging policy

  • Make it clear that the views expressed in the blog are yours alone and do not necessarily represent the views of your employer.
  • Respect the company’s confidentiality and proprietary information.
  • Ask your manager if you have any questions about what is appropriate to include in your blog.
  • Be respectful to the company, employees, customers, partners, and competitors.
  • Understand when the company asks that topics not be discussed for confidentiality or legal compliance reasons.
  • Ensure that your blogging activity does not interfere with your work commitments.
- Originally from the Forrester Best Practice report, "Blogging: Bubble or Big Deal".

Corporate Blogging Policy Examples

About.com Blogging and Social Media Policy Sample By Susan M. Heathfield

Australian Public Service Commission's protocols for online media participation

BBC Guidance on Personal use of Social Networking

CIPR Social Media Guidelines

Cisco's Internet Postings Policy

DePaul University

Easter Seals (reported on Beth Kanter's Blog)

Edelman Online Behavior Policies And Procedures

Feedster

Fellowship Church

Fredrik Wacka's "Beginners' Guide to Corporate Blogging"

Gartner, Inc. Public Web Participation Guidelines

Headset Bros - and great Mashable Article

Harvard Law School

Hill & Knowlton

IBM Social Computing Guidelines

Intel

LiveWorld Social Media Content Guidelines

Plaxo

Right Now Social Web Employee Policy

Robert Scoble's "The Corporate Weblog Manifesto"

Sun Blogs

Sun Microsystems

Telstra (PDF)

Thomas Nelson

U.S. Air Force (Public Affairs Officer's Guide)

US Navy's Policy and Guidance on using Web 2.0 Tools

Walmart's Twitter External Discussion Guidelines

Yahoo! Blogging Policy


Legal Advice to employees:
This "Off Duty Conduct" FAQ offers some useful liability advice to employees from the perspective of labor law. Specifically, #4 and #5 which address conduct on personal blogs and employers options to fire employees for their opinions.

External Discussion Policies
Many external policies are usually kept secret, but in some cases, guidance to employees about engaging in public fora on behalf of the company are published. Here are a few:

Wal-Mart Twitter Discussion Guidelines and excellent critique by Augie Ray

The British Government's Twitter Guide