A sample blogging policy

    If I were launching a social media program at a company, I'd hold a quick meeting in person. I'd mention the following.

• We're opening up blogging to the organization. Every one here is now invited to use our new blogging platform. Why do this? Because we think you're creative, intelligent people, and we want to give you a chance to share your ideas with a larger audience, inside and outside the organization.
• As this is public, just remember that we can't talk about company secrets, upcoming projects that aren't yet public, or anything that could impact our company's stock value.
• Within reason, you can say what you will about our publicly released products and services. If you're critical of something, recommend solutions. Offer examples of improvements. We'd prefer it to be constructive. Use your judgment.
• When posting pictures or movies or music, understand that some materials may be copyrighted. For instance, just because you can see a picture on a Google Image Search or find it in Flickr, that doesn't mean you have rights to post it on your blog. We'll talk more about Creative Commons and some other resources later.
• It's fine to post "off-topic." We don't expect every single post to be about the organization. We hope you'll talk about us from time to time, as our goal is showing our customers, vendors, and other stakeholders, as well as the community at large, that you are what makes our company amazing.
• Mentioning our competitors is fine. The world doesn't revolve around us (okay, we pretend it does!), and we know that some people do some aspects of what we do better. Don't rub our noses in it, but we get it.
• Deleting blog posts is considered bad etiquette on the web. We won't do it here, unless something violates our privacy policies, and/or our ethics policies. Posting hotties probably won't fly, but the occasional cute picture of your cat in a cowboy hat is okay. You're a real human, not a robot.
• It's considered good etiquette to link to other great posts you read, and to comment on other blogs written by people you admire or want to engage in conversation.
• As for how often or how much is too much, and things like that, around here, we measure you on your results at your primary function. If your work starts suffering on your way to the A list of bloggers, we'll have to adjust your expectations a little bit. Otherwise, use your judgment.

     Source: Social Media and Social Networking Starting Points (Chris Brogan) e-book