There is a lot of buzz right now about social media policies. Does your company need one? Not need one? What factors need to be considered in creating a policy?

To start, I’d encourage you to not get hung up on this being just a “social media policy.” Chances are pretty good that your organization already has a host of existing employee policies that provide boundaries and regulate work activity. A social media policy can really be thought of within the larger context of being an overarching “online communications” policy.

If your company is debating putting a policy in place, check out this post from Sharlyn Lauby discussing why you’d want to have a social media policy in the first place. If you’re set on creating a policy but are unsure where to start, I’ve got good news. There’s no need to recreate the wheel. As with so many aspects of social media, collective efforts are helping establish best practices.

I highly recommend checking out the following links to help guide the creation of your own policy:

Dave Fleet – Social Media Policies for Your Company
Dave has put together a couple excellent posts detailing factors that you’ll want to think about addressing in both internal and external policies.

Blog Council – Disclosure Policy

The Blog Council has put together a nice set of guidelines on disclosure and best practices toolkit. These guidelines have been reviewed by numerous Fortune 500 legal departments and are intended for anyone to utilize for their own company.

Corporate Social Media Policy

Sally Falkow identifies links to a range of excellent policy examples.

Mayo Clinic Policy Example

One of my favorite policies. Incredibly well written and easy for any employee to understand.

Jaffe Associates Policy Template

A nice template provided by a D.C. based PR firm.

The Two-Line Social Media Policy

Plain and simple.

Does your company or organization currently have a social media policy in place or are you considering putting one in place?

-Scott