Does your health department have a social media policy? If there’s not an official, written policy, are there implicit guidelines or unwritten rules? Or maybe you have your own rules and assumptions?
We’re curious to hear about your experiences and thoughts on the subject.
Below, I’ve listed a couple of related resources you might find relevant. The first is a general health care (as opposed to public health) example from Kaiser Permanente. They have made their social media policy document public in case others find it helpful as they think about developing a social media policy for their own organization.
Kaiser Permanente Social Media Policy
http://xnet.kp.org/newscenter/media/downloads/kaiser_permanente_social_media_policy.pdf
Also, I recently heard about a tool that can be used to develop an organizational social media policy. It drafts a social policy statement based on answers to a questionnaire. Is anyone interested in testing it out? It would be great to know if this tool might be helpful for public health departments!
The Policy Tool for Social Media
http://socialmedia.policytool.net/
We'd love to year about your experience (or lack thereof!) with social media policies!
Seeing others social media policies would be very helpful!
Thank you for posting the links to SM tools. We are trying to develop our own here in Michigan with a lot of research and without much luck thus far. Navigating HIPPA laws, applying employee privacy needs, administrator access, etc. are daunting hurdles to development of a plan. Any assistance would be great!
If other public health
If other public health agencies are willing to share their policies, that would be great!
Untested
Following our untested, but existent Social Media Policy, we just today received approval from our Department Admin for our very first social media account. The first application highlighted some real world rough spots, and we will need to make some amendments. We can share
ours, and I'd love to see other LHD examples.
Georgianna Wood
Accreditation Coordinator
Humboldt County DHHS Public Health
It looks like Jill (comment
It looks like Jill (comment above) would be interested in seeing your policy if you're willing to share!
For Social Media Newbies
Two books have been helpful for me in learning about the value and uses of social media in the workplace, Open leadership: How social technology can transform the way you lead by Charlene Li, and Likeable social media, by Dave Kerpen. While some of my ASPH colleagues have started Facebook pages for various organizational initiatives and we have a Twitter account, I am getting closer to taking the plunge.
Liz Weist, Association of Schools of Public Health
Social Media Policy
We added a section to our communications plan about social media. It basically indicates who can post items on behalf of the department, and that nothing inappropriate can be posted along with the other standard language related to offical communications.
Did you include provisions on
Did you include provisions on how to handle inappropriate comments made by those outside your agency that may post on the specific social media page? Like say, people form the community commenting on a public Facebook wall?
Here are a few additional
Here are a few additional social media policy documents, with thanks to Alyson Cobb (@AlysonCobb) here and here
We have a social media policy
We have a social media policy at the Alabama Department of Public Health. I have an electronic copy thanks to our Digital Media Branch. I'd be glad to share it with others upon request.
Carol.Heier@adph.state.al.us
NACCHO has some examples and
NACCHO has some examples and comments about how LHDs use social media here: http://www.naccho.org/toolbox/tool.cfm?id=2575. Agencies reference their policies in here and are likely willing to share them.
We have a "Social Networking"
We have a "Social Networking" policy that we'd be glad to share with others. I can also connect anyone who's interested with some of our key staff to hear feedback on how it's working. Feel free to contact me!
Louise.Kent@nkyhealth.org