I wanted to reserve my right to an opinion until the memo came out and the guidelines were recently posted on an NBCSports.com blog (which I found via Mashable, of course).  I read them a few times and they seem very similar to many corporations Social Media guidelines.  What a lot of people aren’t realizing is that every business has rules governing the behavior of their employees.  Whether it’s a call-center person, outside sales representative, Public Relations professional or executive – there are written and unwritten rules on what can and can not be said.  Developing a social media policy is one of the first steps that many corporations take before entering the realm.  This is a control thing because, while many employees are trust-worthy, you have to protect the company from those that are not.

The guidelines that I feel are completely fair and standard are as follows:

• Prior to engaging in any form of social networking dealing with sports, you must receive permission from the supervisor as appointed by your department head
• ESPN.COM may choose to post sports related social media content
• Assume at all times you are representing ESPN
• If you wouldn’t say it on the air or write it in your column, don’t tweet it
• Exercise discretion, thoughtfulness and respect for your colleagues, business associates and our fans
• Avoid discussing internal policies or detailing how a story or feature was reported, written, edited or produced and discussing stories or features in progress, those that haven’t been posted or produced, interviews you’ve conducted, or any future coverage plans.
• Steer clear of engaging in dialogue that defends your work against those who challenge it and do not engage in media criticism or disparage colleagues or competitors
• Be mindful that all posted content is subject to review in accordance with ESPN’s employee policies and editorial guidelines
• Confidential or proprietary company information or similar information of third parties who have shared such information with ESPN, should not be shared

I feel that all these guidelines are fair.  These are in place to protect ESPN as a company which, as I said above, is a necessity.  The two most important ones there are “Assume at all times that you are representing ESPN” and “If you wouldn’t say it on air, don’t tweet it.”   These should be at the basis of every corporations social media policy.  The others are also there to protect the content and intellectual property that ESPN generates it’s revenue from.  That is easily understandable as well – even the most liberal social media policies would frown about giving away the kitchen sink for free (with apologies to Chris Anderson, of course).  And finally, there are a few in there that are designed to protect the tweeter – who could easily get caught in a maelstorm of negative publicity by engaging a troll over a controversial topic.  All in all, these are fair and common.

The ones that I don’t like though are pretty big ones.  I’ll address those individually.

• Personal websites and blogs that contain sports content are not permitted

This is inherently wrong.  I think that ESPN could build themselves a nice networked of employee blogs that they do not feature on Page 2 or whatever other outlets and generate more traffic to their site.  There are some great bloggers out there in the world of journalism – one of my favorites is Peter Abraham – and he has the type of quality blog that I assume many of the ESPN journalists and on-air personalities could write.  Granted, Abraham’s is a blog of his employer, but it still reflects much on his personality.  I would have much rather seen a larger blogger policy that still allowed for the employees to pursue their sports passion on a personal level.  I understand that there may be issues with exposing bias, open ESPN up to litigation, and many other concerns but I feel that those could be addressed in a larger policy while still allowing a controlled freedom to the employees.  This was a big fail on their part, in my eyes.

• If ESPN.com opts not to post sports related social media content created by ESPN talent, you are not permitted to report, speculate, discuss or give any opinions on sports related topics or personalities on your personal platforms

Again, I feel that a more nuanced policy would have been better than an over-arching one like this.  This strips away the potential of developing an alternative news channel – competing with blogs that are taking away traffic (and ultimately money) from ESPN.  Again, a larger policy addressing the corporate hang ups would be better suited here.

• The first and only priority is to serve ESPN sanctioned efforts, including sports news, information and content

This, to me, feels very restricting especially when paired with the favorable “Assume at all times you are representing ESPN.”  This is where I feel ESPN may strip away the personalities of their online employees and thus, like I wrote in my previous post, fail at their social media endeavors.

Overall, while most of the guidelines are appropriate for the type of business that ESPN is, I feel that they still missed the boat on engaging in Social Media.  Not only are they missing it from the classic “two way conversation” perspective, they also are missing the business potential out there.  One of the main competitors to their content are existing sports blogs that aggregate the facts from their site and distribute it to the masses.  Often these are sites built on personal passion for a team or a sport.  What better way to compete against that then by offering up similar material from people who are hearing things from the source and carry much more journalistic integrity.  Ultimately, personal employee blogs (which could be linked to by ESPN like many companies do) would drive traffic back to ESPN.com and build larger followings for their beat writers, column writers, and on-air talent.  I gave you a chance ESPN.  I reserved judgment, but I have to tell you: You’re doing it wrong.  And the only people that will lose anything will be you.