Social Media

Basketball Ireland (BI) aims to encourage all members participating in basketball to engage in the use of social media where possible in order to help to promote the game and improve communication channels. 

BI is keen to encourage new initiatives on social media and will try to support members to develop new ways of connecting with the wider public when possible.

While BI would be hopeful that all members engage with social media in a positive and constructive manner, we do recognise that everyone has the right to freedom of speech. BI does however, reserve the right to remove any material it deems inappropriate from its own social media pages.

Below are some helpful and practical guidelines to implement Social Media in a positive and affective manner.

Protect Information

Social media encourages you to share information and connect with people. When you use social media, you should try and build relationships, but you should also be aware not to share confidential information or any personally identifiable information. Protecting privacy and personal information is essential because if you mistakenly post confidential information on a social media platform, it will be hard to take down that information completely.

Be Transparent and Disclose

When you talk about BI on social media, you should disclose that you either work for BI or are a member of a committee, council or board. Your own contacts may know your relationship with BI, but their network of friends and colleagues may not and you don't want to accidentally mislead someone.

Follow the Law, Follow the Code of Conduct

Social media lets you communicate incredibly fast and have your message go viral in seconds. This makes it difficult to fix an inaccurate message once you've shared it. The best thing to do is double check all content before you share it, both for accuracy and to make sure to portray the message you are trying to communicate. One of BI's core values is integrity, and that applies to social media as well. We wish for all BI members to hold high ethical standards and that applies to social media also.

Be Responsible

Make sure you're engaging in social media conversations the right way. Don't speak on behalf of BI if you aren't giving an official BI response, and be sure your audience knows the difference. If you see something being shared related to BI on a social media platform that shouldn't be happening, immediately inform the media manager in BI. Also, always remember that anything posted in social media can go viral, no matter what your privacy settings may be, so be sure you're only posting content you would feel comfortable showing up online. 

Social Media Account Ownership

This section isn't a social media principle, but it's still important enough to be in this policy. If you participate in social media activities as part of your role in BI, that account may be considered BI property. If that account is BI property, you don't get to take it with you if you leave the company, meaning you will not try to change the password or the account name or create a similar sounding account or have any ownership of the contacts and connections you have gained through the account. This doesn't apply to personal accounts that you may access, but would certainly apply to all BI-branded accounts created as part of your role.

If you have any questions about an account you operate, please reach out to the media team to discuss the account.