How to identify yourself in social media

Transparency is a strong value in the social media culture, and it’s important for both your own and EDF’s credibility that you are transparent when you participate in conversations. The goal of identifying yourself is to avoid the appearance of being dishonest or disingenuous.

These guidelines apply when you are either communicating on behalf of EDF or discussing issues that we work on, and they apply to anyone paid by EDF to participate. If you have questions, please ask.

Here are specific pointers:

• On any platform that supplies a profile for you, identify yourself as an EDF employee. Use your full name and title, or link to a place, such as your bio page, where they are available. Once you’ve done this, you don’t need to identify yourself in every comment. Some examples of social media where you can use your profile to identify yourself are Twitter, grist.org, Facebook (under “Info”) and LinkedIn.
• If you don’t have a profile, make it clear in your comment or post that you are associated with EDF. You can do this in the text of the comment, “In my work at EDF, I get this question a lot…” “My coworker here at EDF just did this analysis, and…”or in your signature. Examples of places where you might identify yourself this way are blog comments, comments on news sites and discussion boards.
• Don’t use false or anonymous identities. Unsigned posts can fairly easily be traced to EDF computers, and we don’t want to be in the position of explaining them.

If you have questions, please ask your manager, the Digital Marketing Team or human resources staff.