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HomeMy WebLinkAbout6B. Approve Social Media Policy6B. Council Action TO: Mayor and City Council THROUGH: Mike McGuire, Interim City Administrator FROM: Delane James, Library Director MEETING DATE: January 8, 2013 SUBJECT: Approve Social Media Policy Background: At the December 18, 2012 Joint Committee Meeting, Paul Peanasky and Delane James presented a draft of a social media policy to the Council for discussion and consideration. Since that meeting, the draft policy has been edited to address questions council members brought forward during that discussion. The revised draft policy includes the following: Only staff members assigned by Department Directors will administer the departments’ social media channels. Department Directors are responsible for monitoring content and workflow related to their department’s official use of social media. Staff members administering social media channels will do so during normal hours of operation using City owned equipment whenever possible. All staff members administering City social media platforms will participate in the Social Media Administrators’ Committee and will receive ongoing best practices training. Recommendation: Staff recommends approval of the City of Faribault Social Media Policy. Attachments: City of Faribault Social Media Policy—Draft January 8, 2013 City of Faribault Social Media Policy Draft January 13, 2013 I. PURPOSE The City of Faribault endorses the use of carefully chosen social media tools as an important enhancement to communication, collaboration and information exchange between city department staff members, citizens and the general public. Social media use by city departments can provide streamlined and cost-effective marketing and outreach, as well as foster a sense of community between these departments and their users. This policy establishes the City’s position on the usefulness and selection of social media models and provides guidelines for management and compliance with other City policies. The City of Faribault recognizes that technology advancements are continuous and that new tools will emerge which have useful applications in various department settings; thus, this policy addresses social media in general, and not specific programs, websites, or technology platforms. II. POLICY The primary mission of the City of Faribault is to provide quality public services to its residents and businesses in a democratic environment where people, productivity, and professionalism are valued. Social media tools provide a potentially valuable method to assist City departments in achieving this mission. Social media tools employed by the departments will be selected to enhance or provide more cost-effective means to deliver such functions as: Community outreach, marketing and publicity Education of the community in the use of City resources Cultural and educational programming Advertisement of volunteer opportunities available for each department Additional City uses that may be explored or expanded upon as deemed reasonable by Department Directors. The City’s social media offerings are intended to create a welcoming and inviting online space where citizens will find useful and entertaining information. In some forums, users may be able to interact with City staff and with other users, as detailed in section III C. below. III. STRATEGIES AND PROCEDURES A.STRATEGIES 1. Social media pages may be designed for a target audience, such as local business owners, Family Aquatic Center users or book discussion groups as well as general interest pages that represent an entire department. 2. Social media should have a demonstrable departmental program focus, such as recreational youth programs, adult softball, fire safety or reader’s advisory. 3. Third party social media sites may be used to post City-created content, if it is clearly labeled as provided by a department of the City of Faribault and if the department has the right to publish the content. Examples are: Podcasts of City Council meetings or EDA programs on podcast aggregators, such as PodBean and iTunes, for users to listen to after the meeting or program date; Videos of Faribault Parks and Recreation events posted on video aggregators, such as YouTube or Vimeo, to increase access speeds for users and reduce pressure on the City’s bandwidth; Library participation as a contributor of book reviews and reading lists to established online book discussion communities, such as LibraryThing and Goodreads.com. 4. Social media content postings should be aggregated using content syndication tools (where allowable) to reduce staff time for publishing content. B. PROCEDURES 1.Participation by a City department in social media sites or pages and online communities (not individual posts) shall be approved in advance by the Department Director. 2.Only staff members assigned by the Department Director will administer and maintain the department’s social media channels. The Department Director is responsible for monitoring the content and workflow related to official use of the department’s social media channels. 3.Where possible, each social media page should clearly indicate that it is maintained by a City department and should have department contact information prominently displayed. 4.Where possible, each social media page/profile should include an introductory statement that clearly specifies the purpose and scope of the department’s presence on the website. 5.Where possible, social media pages should link to the department’s official website. 6.If user discussion and contribution is invited on a City created and Public Terms maintained social media sites, it shall be subject to the of Use under III D. below. This shall be clearly indicated on the social media page that invites participation. 7.Social media content shall adhere to applicable laws, regulations, and policies including all information technology and records management policies. a.Content is subject to public records laws and City of Faribault’s records retention policy. b.Content shall be managed, stored and retrieved to comply with open records law and e-discovery laws and policies. C. STAFF RESPONSIBILITIES 1.When representing the City of Faribault via social media, personnel shall: a.Conduct themselves at all times as representatives of their departments and accordingly adhere to all associated standards of conduct; b.Identify himself or herself by name as department personnel; c.Not make statements about users, or post, transmit, or otherwise disseminate confidential information in violation of data privacy policies; d.Not represent postings as official departmental policy, unless this has been clearly approved by the Department Director. e.Not conduct political activities or private business. 2.City of Faribault personnel shall observe and abide by all copyright, trademark, and service mark restrictions in posting materials to electronic media. 3.Staff members representing the City on any social media platform will use an official City of Faribault social media account. All City of Faribault social media accounts will be registered to the City of Faribault and its departments and will not be related to or managed through any personal account held by staff. 4.Where possible, staff members administering City of Faribault social media channels will do so during normal hours of operation using City owned equipment. 5.Staff members responsible for administering any City social media platform will participate in the Social Media Administrators’ Committee as well as ongoing best practices training. 6.City of Faribault personnel upon separation from employment will no longer be authorized to post as an administrator to any departmental social media outlet and must immediately relinquish usernames and passwords for said sites to the Department Director. D. PUBLIC TERMS OF USE 1.The City of Faribault has no affiliation with any advertisements or other materials posted by third party sites or software. 2.By choosing to comment on City of Faribault Social Media sites, public users agree to these terms: a.Comments are moderated by City staff, and the departments reserve the right to not post or to remove comments that are unlawful or off topic as determined in its sole discretion, including, but not limited to: i. Plagiarized material; ii. Copyright violations; iii. Off-topic comments; iv. Commercial material/spam; v. Duplicate posts from the same individual; vi. Comments containing sexually explicit language or images, or statements that ridicule, malign, disparage or otherwise express bias against a race, religion or protected class of individual; vii. Personal comments about individuals, including attacks, insults, or threatening language; viii.Images, executable programs or any non-textual content. b.Persons who repeatedly violate these terms may be barred from further postings. c.All comments are public records, and as such, are subject to public record laws and the City of Faribault’s records retention schedule. Commenters are urged to protect their privacy. Commenters should not post personally identifying information, including but not limited to: last name, school, age, phone number, address, library card number. The City recommends use of a generic username that is not personally identifying. (Staff will use real names for transparency and accountability.) IV. DEFINITIONS Blog- A self-published diary or commentary on a particular topic that may allow visitors to post responses, reactions or comments. The term is short for “web log”. Page- The specific portion of a social media website where content is displayed, and managed by an individual or individuals with administrator rights. Podcast- An archived digital audio presentation available for download from a website. Post- Content an individual shares on social media or the act of publishing content on a site. Profile- Information that a user provides about himself or herself or an organization they represent (as an administrator on a page) on a social networking site. Social Media- A category of Internet-based resources that integrate user- generated content and user participation. This includes, but is not limited to, social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace), microblogging sites (Twitter, Nixle), photo and video sharing sites (Flickr, YouTube), wikis (Wikipedia), social cataloging (Goodreads, LibraryThing), blogs and news sites (Digg, Reddit). Social Networks- Online platforms where users can create profiles, share information, share interests and socialize with others using a range of technologies. Speech- Expression or communication of thoughts or opinions in spoken words, in writing, by expressive conduct, symbolism, photographs, video, or related forms of communication. Web 2.0- The second generation of the World Wide Web focused on sharable, user-generated content that is dynamic rather than static web pages. Some use this term interchangeably with social media. Wiki- Web page(s) that can be edited collaboratively. POTENTIAL USES 1. Social media can be used for community outreach and engagement by: a. demonstrating access and use of City resources. b. announcing program offerings, special events, services and service interruptions. c. providing a pubic forum to facilitate the sharing of ideas, opinions and information about City-related subjects and issues. e. offering channels of City created audio and video content (Podcasting, YouTube, iTunes-U) that furthers the reach of our services and programming without placing a bandwidth burden on City networks. f. providing quick response to information requests from the community. 2. Social media can be used for marketing by: a. extending beyond traditional media sources (print, television, radio) in order to reach new users from younger demographics. b. providing low to no-cost (staff time only) publicity in a social atmosphere not unlike the word-of-mouth network so vital and successful to promotion of our community. 3. Social media can be used to make time-sensitive notifications related to: a. facility, street and program closures. b. changes to special events. c. real-time emergency notification and information. 4. People seeking employment and volunteer positions often use the Internet to search for opportunities and social media can serve as a valuable recruitment resource.