We in the Health and Transportation Communications group are mulling which social media platforms to use (as would be apparent to all of you who filled out our surveys--thanks!) and one of our members remarked that USDOT policy has the effect of strongly discouraging employees from including their agency affiliation if they engage in social media as individuals, e.g., not as a social media staffer, but in a work-related context, e.g., a LinkedIn group for health and transportation.

I posted that observation to the Facebook group, Transportation Social Media <transportationsocialmedia@groups.facebook.com>, (which, by the way, is a great sounding board and resource for any of you trying to get a grasp on social media in our field). Here are some excerpts from the replies I received.

Phyllis

Phyllis, in my opinion, your friend should only worry about the issue if he is going to try to open social media accounts that are related to his transportation/federal government interests. For instance, if he wanted to start a twitter feed that focused and connected with transportation policy folks - he would want to note in his profile that his comments and opinions are his own and do not represent the thoughts and opinions of the federal agency for which he works.

Phyllis Orrick

6:15am Sep 7

I guess the question my colleague had was how does USDOT define "make sure it's clear"? He seems to feel that he can't show his affiliation at all. Anyone else have thoughts? Or is there a written guidance, with examples of acceptable social media accounts that include USDOT affiliations--and not accounts run on behalf of an agency?

Not true. USDOT has a social media policy like other fed agencies that asks employees to make sure it's clear they are not representing the agency in their personal social media activities--unless they are assigned to work on one of USDOT's 32 social accounts.