How social are your media?

Agencies and corporations have been on a hot streak laying down and revising guidelines for the on-the-job use (or non-use) of social media.

It’s not an easy matter. With the government (and companies) bent on harnessing the significant power of social media that mostly were designed for nongovernmental, non-corporate applications, the lines can get a bit blurred.

The fact that social media such as Facebook are common to the computer on your desk at the office as well as the one on your coffee table at home makes it easy to forget what you are doing, and where you are. At home, saying exactly what you want to say online — and maybe just doing it to waste time — is often considered entertainment. At work, it can get you fired.

It does still seem a little weird, at least to some of us, to see huge federal agencies on Facebook, which a lot of people otherwise use mostly to trade comments with people they didn’t even talk to in high school.

At any rate, we’d like to stimulate a little discussion on the topic, because we’ve been wondering how all this is working inside the federal government.

Do people abuse social media on the job? (We all know about the tweeting episode that led to the downfall of a certain legislator, so let’s get beyond that one.)

Second, are there shining examples of social media being used really well at your agency? If so, share them. We’d like to take a look.