I keep hearing people talking about how they’ve written a ‘set of Twitter protocols’ or ‘a social media policy’. They cover things like what to tweet and what not to tweet, how often to tweet it and the ‘right way’ to use Twitter. (If you think you know the answer to that last one please keep it to yourself.)

Do we really need policies and protocols for every aspect of our job? If so, why are people employing us? Surely we use social media tools only if appropriate, if doing so helps deliver our communications goals and in compliance with our organisation’s existing codes of practice? Just like any other tools for communicating. When was the last time you saw a six-page document detailing how to use a telephone, what not to say on it and how often you should ring people? (Ok, in some lines of work (such as call centres) there will be protocols for using the phone, but you get my drift.)

I tried writing a social media policy myself recently. I started with the intention of providing broad concepts to help people communicate confidently online (such as ‘think about your audience’ rather than ‘don’t tweet more than fourteen times a minute’), and abandoned it when I realised I was simply reiterating what was already in our contracts and organisational policies; and what was, on the whole, common sense borne of experience.

Instead I wrote a guide to blogging and social media that aims to give colleagues some advice but tries to avoid a ‘right way’ of doing it (it is a document of good practice, not a policy). If communicating is part of someone’s job then we should trust them to do it appropriately; if they don’t then there are management protocols already at our disposal for dealing with them.

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I’m currently following 199 people, and for me that’s quite a large commitment because I try to pay attention to all of you. If someone directs a message to me I like to reply, whether I’m following them or not. Therefore I don’t want to greatly increase my Twitter ‘friends’.

Following back

If you follow me, thank you: I hope you enjoy what you see. If I don’t follow you back it’s because I’m struggling with what I’ve got and don’t want to add to it. It also probably means that you don’t fit the profile of who I want to follow at the moment, but that is entirely arbitrary on my part and not at all a reflection of your tweets: and it may well change in your favour at some point.

Unfollowing

I’ve tried very hard not to stop following people, but at some point I feel it will be inevitable. If I do unfollow you it is very probably nothing that you have said. Ignore Qwitter, if you use it (Qwitter‘s a service that alerts you when people stop following you and tells them which message pre-empted it). If I stop following you it’s simply down to my capacity to stay engaged with other people: please don’t let Qwitter make you think I took umbrage at something you said!

Blocking

If I block you it’s because you’ve followed me purely to promote your product or service with no intention of informing or engaging, and you are very probably a spammer. Take the hint and go away.

But for the majority of you who are genuine, please be reassured that if I unfollow or don’t follow you back it’s simply because I don’t feel I can do you justice at the moment.

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