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difficult to imagine that sometimes city staff may comment on city - related issues. Such a scenario <br />often starts out innocently enough, but can lead to problems down the road. <br />An example of use of a personal social media account that crosses the line from strictly personal to <br />city related could be of the public works director who has a personal Twitter account. The public <br />works director created the account to talk about and follow others with shared interests on topics <br />such as hobbies, raising kids, and professional sports. <br />After being on Twitter a while, the public works director <br />finds an official account for a professional group that he <br />belongs to — the American Public Works Association. He <br />already regularly visits the APWA website, but following <br />the APWA on Twitter means he gets real -time updates <br />about things that impact his job — national wastewater <br />rule changes, upcoming conferences, and job openings. <br />He's now started to merge his personal and professional <br />lives. <br />Now consider that he's developed a following on Twitter <br />that includes his friends who live in the city, and some of their friends start to follow him. One day <br />the public works director realizes he has a broad network of people interested in what he has to <br />say, and some folks are following him just because he works for the city. <br />He starts to see Twitter as a way to communicate important information to residents about snow <br />emergencies or ice rinks opening, and he does so. His following grows because people know they <br />can get important city - related news when it matters most. At first, the city information being <br />communicated is straightforward, doesn't bear any real negative impact for the city, and actually <br />helps the city do its work — residents are moving their vehicles before plowing begins! <br />But the city still should consider what it means that the public works director has started to use <br />personal social media for official city business. The city could determine it would like to make use <br />of social media part of the public works director's official job duties. Some questions to consider <br />in this scenario include: What happens if the public works director is disgruntled because a new <br />equipment request is denied and he posts information blasting the council? What if he comments <br />negatively about a staff member, or shares non - public information about that person in his <br />personal social media accounts? What happens if the city faces a data request and a personal <br />computer or other technology has been used to communicate on the topic of interest? What <br />happens if he takes ajob in another city and the city loses those connections to the public that he <br />developed via social media? <br />Staff without explicit job duties detailed in ajob description should be expected to follow the <br />city's existing computer use policy when it comes to using city technology to access social media <br />sites. A city computer use policy should outline when and how staff can use city technology for <br />personal use, employee privacy expectations, reference other policies that might come to bear such <br />as harassment prevention policies, and discipline for violating the policy. <br />Learn More <br />Read more in the following <br />materials from the League: <br />Developing a Computer Use <br />Policy <br />These items and more are at in the <br />Resource Library of <br />http: / /www.imc.org <br />Page 8 of 12 <br />64 <br />