Often in my role as Social Media Evangelist at iCrossing, my team and I are tasked with creating robust Govnerance Models or Engagement Charters for clients across a wide variety of industries. This is not a quick and easy “one size” fits-all task. And while there are wonderful “standard” social media rules of engagement that we are all familiar with (listen, be transparent, speak human, be useful), the intricacies of becoming a social brand are not fully summed up in any one Top Ten list.
The considerations for a social media governance model are numerous: brand identity/voice/tone, internal resources, staffing and stakeholders, work-flow adjustments, escalation policies, appropriate topics of conversation and language, identity/social equity “ownership” (who does brand social equity belong to? The employee Tweeting on behalf of a brand or the brand?), legal issues and ramifications, industry regulations, content posting policies….well you get the point. While this may seem a bit of an arduous task, creating these governance models lay a crucial foundation, and are vital to any social media–ahem, digital– strategy and long term success (and they’re actually fun to create too, believe it or not).
This Rules of Engagement visual for the US Air Force is an excellent example of extracting the heavy, often quasi-legalese rhetoric of what might be a governance policy and distilling it into a “user friendly” guide for internal stakeholders and participants in social media. Just the sort of thing that hangs nicely in your Tweeter’s cubicle 
Brilliant visual. Clear and concise. #Military
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