• Decide who can contribute to official online communities. For example, can members contribute or just organizational leaders? Are all leaders allowed to contribute or only senior employees?
• Do not create policy that prevents people from being social. For a case study in how NOT to do it, see the Wall Street Journal's social media policy.
• If someone is monitoring posts, inform employees. They have a right to know that what they say may be read. Do not censor posts and do not restrict comments. You cannot violate an employee's freedom of speech. Remember, the purpose of social media is to encourage ideas and conversations with people outside your normal network.
• If you establish an online community, clearly communicate the intent of the community: missions, evangelism, informational, etc. Encourage employees to be responsive to posts and queries.
• Contributors should be encouraged to post quality content that shares information and move forward with the vision or mission of your organization. This is not to say the contributor should never post personal or anecdotal comments; but overall, there should be consistent value when representing the organization.
• Encourage contributors to be articulate, clear, and truthful. For example, they should reveal their position within the organization and any conflicts of interest, personal or professional affiliations.
• Remind contributors that they should never reveal personal information such as birthdays, social security or account numbers, home address, vacation plans, names, schools, pictures, and locations or habits of members or co-workers, especially minors.
• Respect copyright law and give credit for information borrowed from other sources.
• Research social media policies published by profit and non-profit organizations.
• Research the social networking impact in our culture. Read books like Groundswell, Here Comes Everybody, and Crowdsourcing to help understand the impact of social networking on your community, church, or organization.

For more resources, see our Resource page.