[NOTE: This post is a recap of this week's series on the Community Engagement Framework.]

The Community Engagement Framework will contain the definitions of what I mean when I talk and write about community engagement, social business, social media and social governance.

Social Media

Social media can be defined as an ecosystem that consists of three elements:

• People People are the driving force behind social media instead of professional publishers or editorial staff for example.
• Behavior People have to do something, whether it is creating content, interacting with one another or distributing content. Behavior is what boosts social media.
• Technology Technology enables social media to happen on a quick and easy basis by providing the platforms and tools for People and Behavior.

The image below illustrates the definition:

Social media is an autonomous entity. It will take place regardless of whether a random individual or organization decides to become involved.

Once an organization decides to become involved in social media, it becomes a more strategic process. Organizations need to understand and think of what their involvement will be within social media.

Social Business

Social business can be seen as becoming involved with social media as an organization. It is a process of an organization building social capital by creating valuable relationships.

The elements that make up social business are:

• Goals and Objectives Organizations need to understand and define what they are looking to achieve by using social media.
• Strategy The goals and objectives need to be translated into an approach that will lead to positive business results.
• Organization The strategy devised has to be rolled out within the organization. Teams need to be formed, employees need to be informed and educated, and the operational details need to be figured out.
• Integration The organization’s social business should be aligned with other business activities to establish consistency and complementary results.

The image below illustrates the elements of social business:

By addressing the elements above, organizations prepare themselves effectively for engaging in social media.

Social Governance

Social governance refers to the formal and informal rules that are used to monitor and govern social media use. These fall into four categories:

• Laws Local, national and international laws can contain formal rules on how to communicate online and which disclosures need to be provided.
• Rules and Regulations Formal institutes, such as trade or industry organizations, can issue rules and regulations that members of the industry need to adhere to. An example is the blogging disclosure rules that the FTC issued last year.
• Guidelines Organizations can create their own guidelines on how employees use social media. Examples of organizations that have a formal social media policy are IBM, Intel and Kodak (PDF).
• Ethical Codes The unwritten ethical rules on communication should also not be overlooked. These ethical codes are often a good starting point for creating more formal rules or guidelines.

Social governance is needed to make sure that social media is not abused by either organizations or members of the public to deceive others. And abuse has definitely taken place. Examples of Belkin, Whole Foods and Honda illustrate how sensitive the issue is and how seriously governance needs to be taken.

Community Engagement Framework

Social media, social business and social governance come together in the Community Engagement Framework.

For organizations, social business lies at the heart of community engagement. This should be the starting point for organizations to determine their approach for engaging in social media. The operational part takes place within social media where the content creation, content distribution, and interaction take place. Social governance takes place around social media and social business as a guiding factor.

Leading up to today, I talked about social media and social business as part of the Community Engagement Framework. Today, I’ll add the final part of the framework: social governance.

Social governance refers to the formal and informal rules that are used to monitor and govern social media use. These fall into four categories:

• Laws Local, national and international laws can contain formal rules on how to communicate online and which disclosures need to be provided.
• Rules and Regulations Formal institutes, such as trade or industry organizations, can issue rules and regulations that members of the industry need to adhere to. An example is the blogging disclosure rules that the FTC issued last year.
• Guidelines Organizations can create their own guidelines on how employees use social media. Examples of organizations that have a formal social media policy are IBM, Intel and Kodak (PDF).
• Ethical Codes The unwritten ethical rules on communication should also not be overlooked. These ethical codes are often a good starting point for creating more formal rules or guidelines.

Social governance is needed to make sure that social media is not abused by either organizations or members of the public to deceive others. And abuse has definitely taken place. Examples of Belkin, Whole Foods and Honda illustrate how sensitive the issue is and how seriously governance needs to be taken.

Community Engagement Framework

Social media, social business and social governance come together in the Community Engagement Framework.

For organizations, social business lies at the heart of community engagement. This should be the starting point for organizations to determine their approach for engaging in social media. The operational part takes place within social media where the content creation, content distribution, and interaction take place. Social governance takes place around social media and social business as a guiding factor.

Let me hear your thoughts on the Community Engagement Framework in the comments or hit me up on Twitter!

1. Preparation: Before embarking on social media activities, you should have scouted out your audience. How social media savvy are they? How large is the audience? What is the level their clout? What typical conversations (about your brand) are already taking place? Et cetera. Finding the answers to these questions helps you determine whether the audience is willing and able to embrace you within the social media space. It helps you fine-tune your expectations, priorities and going-in position.
2. Policy: Create a social media policy for those who will be involved. This creates clarity on what can and what cannot be done while engaging in social media. Prepare not only general guidelines for everyday social media activities but also prepare specific guidelines for special occasions such as publicity dramas and compromised accounts (hackers).

Know what to do when going in. Know what to do once you’re in.

There is risk involved though. One recent case involved Belkin’s representative of Amazon.com. Mr Bayard not only offered to pay customers $0.65 per positive review of Belkin, he also wrote positive reviews himself using pseudonyms.

Social media can make a lot of a company’s marketing more transparent, but cases like these make it a false sense of transparency. I hope that companies take an ethical point of view when dealing with customer reviews, but there will be exceptions unfortunately.

There might be more than meets the eye. Be critical.