Image From: http://envirospec.co.nz/
I’m certain no one reading this has ever uttered those words, but many can remember hearing this phrase from their parents. Regardless to your reaction to this little jaunt down memory lane, you should have this phrase in mind while creating and monitoring your social presence.
Think of your website, your Twitter page, your Facebook page, your YouTube channel, etc. as your house. And just like your own home, create some rules you intend to enforce and, most importantly, make sure those visiting your house are aware of the rules as well as the consequences of breaking them.
The rules I’m suggesting you write and post on your social media sites are often called “Terms of Use.” (I would also suggest your website contain a Privacy Policy, but that is fodder for another time). Examples of a Terms of Use Policy abound, but why go to the trouble of posting them when most visitors will never read them?
Liability Protection
Unless your social media sites are only used to promote a product or a service, you should draft, post and enforce a Terms of Use Policy. If you generate revenue through your site, provide visitors with information, and/or allow people to leave their comments on your page, you may be able to protect yourself from some liability by sharing the rules of the house with your visitors.
Terms of Use generally tell visitors to your site the responsibilities they have when visiting. They often speak about copyright, intellectual property rights, the tone of comments you expect to be left and matters along these lines. By laying all this out in writing, on your social site, you are giving legal notice these rules exist and a warning they will be enforced. Ultimately, the Terms of Use can act as a layer of protection for the owner of the social site.
What Are The Terms?
Generally your Terms of Use Policy will share with visitors what you believe to be the purpose of your social site. You’ll likely want to tell visitors what they are permitted to do with the content on the site and what responsibility you take for things like typographical errors, links on the site, etc.
Think of the Terms of Use as your contract with the people who visit your site and have those rules address some or all of the following:
- What must they do to leave a comment on your site?
- What rules do you have about foul language and who is the ultimate arbiter of what is “foul.” (I suggest you go with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that “I’ll know it when I see it” and make yourself the sole arbiter.
- Tell visitors the jurisdiction where disputes will be handled and the state laws that will be used. If you ship a widget to an individual in Alaska, I’m guessing you would like to enforce your widget’s warranty right here in Colorado, according to Colorado law.
Here's an example of a Terms of Use Policy, however, I strongly recommend never simply copying and pasting a policy someone else created onto your social site. Every policy is different, even if only slightly. Don’t risk leaving something important out or including something that doesn’t apply to you, because you’re too lazy or cheap to draft your own personalized policy.
Enforcement
Just like the rules of your house, creating a rule and failing to enforce it is a bad policy. Don’t tell visitors you won’t tolerate four-letter words on your site and then fail to remove a post containing a four-letter word. Setting this type of precedent is unwise for a number of reasons. The bottom line is once you go to the trouble of posting a Terms of Use Policy you must go to the trouble of policing your site and enforcing your rules. No exceptions!
Conclusion
It’s your house and you make the rules! Let visitors know what the rules are and the consequences of breaking them. Once you do that, you must enforce the rules you make - without exception. Create rules that are specifically tailored to your needs. Don’t just copy and paste rules from another website. Even though your social sites exist in the virtual world of the Internet, you want to protect them and yourself as if they existed right here on Planet Earth.
