There are many published guidelines on the internal use of social media, of which those from IBM and Intel are widely recognized as setting a high standard. This set of guidelines, in alphabetical order, has been developed from a number of different sources.

Adding value

It should always be clear what value your contribution is adding to the business. Be informative and interesting. Your expertise, experience and opinions regarding issues you know well and care about could have a significant impact on the performance of the business.

Anger management

It is very easy for people to use social media to sound off about something. If there is a critical edge to a contribution, come back and look at it again and imagine how you would react if you were the recipient of the posting. Once the words are out there, you cannot get them back, and once an inflammatory discussion gets going the damage can be widespread and long lasting.

Anonymity

All contributions should be signed, and that includes comments. Readers may wish to find out more about you, so make sure your entry in the staff directory is current and relevant.

Approval

There is no approval process for social media within the organization, but it is courteous to inform your manager, and also your colleagues, that you are contributing to a social media channel. You would not want them to be unaware that you were doing so, and be surprised to find that others in the organization were reading your report of a department meeting.

Circulation

You may be making contributions to a blog or wiki to which access is currently restricted to either specific employees or employees with a specific role or function. It is sometimes easy to forget that this is the case and that your contribution may be invisible to many people who could benefit from it. It is also worth remembering that it is still possible for your contribution to escape if someone wishes to circulate it to others. And, some time in the future the social media application, and your contributions to it, could be opened up to a much wider audience than you originally envisaged.