SOAR

SOAR Customers,

The Boy Scouts of America released guidelines for using social media (Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) over the summer. There wasn’t much fanfare about the release of these guidelines, nor have I seen it trickle down to many local units yet. I wanted to make sure these guidelines reached each SOAR customer, so you can use this information if you are using social media for your unit.

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Marketing/Resources/SocialMedia.aspx

The summary:

• Make sure you are following the Scout Oath and Law online
• Make sure you are still using “two deep leadership” Youth Protection online
• Make sure you are adhering to the terms of service of the vendor
• All personal profiles should be PRIVATE
• All social media channels should be PUBLIC
  • For Facebook it should be a PUBLIC fan page

That last two statements may surprise many. Why not a PRIVATE group or page?

The following is solely my own opinion of why.

“Free” internet services are really not free. Money has to be made somewhere to cover the costs of running the service. If you are not paying for the service then you are usually giving something away in the “terms and conditions” of the service so that the company CAN make money to continue to run the service. This often comes in the form of advertising, sharing your information with others, or trying to sell you something else. Many times with free services you also may not “own” the content you enter.
• According to BSA policy, you cannot have advertising on your unit website - http://marketing.scouting.org/Resources/UnitWeb.aspx
  • This may be news to many of you as well !
• I think we all understand the risk of someone sharing our scouting information with others. We certainly do not want that.
• Trying to sell you something else falls back into the Advertising category.

When you purchase an internet service you are assured that there will be no advertising, the vendor will keep your information private, and you own everything you put into the service.

Many of the popular social media sites are struggling with moving from “a good idea” where they offer a free service to a profitable corporation. As they continue down the path towards profitable corporation their terms and conditions WILL change to accomplish that.

It is my belief that this is what BSA is worried about. What you think is private within these services may NOT really be private. You do not own it.

On the other hand if you use social media in the PUBLIC mode, then you are not putting anything into the service that is at risk. Should they change their terms and service or share anything it will not affect you.

Based upon the guidelines it is now clear that social media is NOT good as a primary method of communication with your unit members.

As the owner of SOAR I have set the policy on social media extensions for the SOAR website service. This policy has been to not integrate SOAR websites with social media. My reasoning for this was the following:

1. BSA had no policy on social media. Without such a policy I felt we could be putting our customers at future risk with any type of integration.
2. BSA website guidelines and youth protection policies are pretty clear about keeping things private.
3. Trying to keep things private within social media is a huge risk.
4. There are simply too many ways for information to escape into the public domain via mis-configured settings or by vendor mistake.

Now that the BSA guidelines for social media are here and BSA is very clear on the PUBLIC aspect of using social media, there is a baseline with which SOAR can work with. As we move into 2012 I will be reviewing our policy on social media integration and outlining some areas where integration may now fit with SOAR websites.

If your Pack or Troop is using social media, or just starting to have the discussion, I encourage you to print out BSA’s guidelines for social media and bring it to your next committee meeting.

Michael C. Kabot
President - SOAR