Apache Branded Social Media Best Practices¶

These are best practices for Apache® projects and PMCs managing their own social media accounts that include Apache project brands or trademarks in the names.

Third parties should ensure that their usage of Apache® trademarks in their own social media conforms to our Apache Trademark Policy.

Contents

Social Media Best Practices¶

These best practices are written from the perspective of Apache projects, podlings, and communities managing their own branded accounts in conjunction with a PMC. In general, only the PMC has standing to speak officially on behalf of that Apache project as a whole.

While we believe these are good practices for any social media, they apply in particular to any social media account name (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) that includes an Apache project brand or trademark as part of the name. When using the name or brand of a project as part of your social media name, most readers will see a direct connection to that project, and may believe it is an "official" voice. Everyone is free to manage personal social media accounts as they choose; however if the social media account name includes an Apache brand these best practices should be followed.

Access to Project Social Media Accounts¶

Access to a project's social media accounts should be managed through the PMC. To ensure fairness, and consistency when project members come and go, access should be through aggregation tools (like Hootsuite for Twitter) that do not require disseminating the underlying login credentials. Relying on a single PMC member to control access is not recommended. PMCs are responsible for managing these accounts, not Apache Infrastructure.

PMCs are free to use lazy consensus, voting, or an "all committers granted access" policy to control access as they see fit for the accounts they manage. PMCs are encouraged to own social media accounts that use their primary branding where practical (i.e. if an outside entity or single committer owns the account, it's a good idea to see if they will donate it to the PMC).

Key Dos and Don'ts For Social Media¶

Anything said in public is fair game for the press.

• Don't post anything via social media you wouldn't want to see reported on news sites.
• Make sure what you're saying/sharing is appropriate for all audiences, and reflects well on your Apache project.

Be polite when posting or replying

• Informal voice is OK, unprofessional is not.
• Absolutely no use of NSFW language, images, or scenarios when using official Apache project accounts – and avoid associating your project or the Apache brand with anything that is likely to be considered offensive.

Share relevant, positive information.

• Feel free to share stories about your project, whether they come from the community, tech press, or folks outside of the press and community. Avoid sharing negative stories about "competing" projects.
• Keep posts/reposts relevant to your project community and technology. Most people love LOLCats, but it's probably best not to share them from your project's social media accounts.
• Please share event information so long as it's related directly to your project. Promoting an event where there are talks about CloudStack (for example) is spot-on. Promoting an event only because a vendor that has an interest in CloudStack is participating would be outside the scope of CloudStack social media accounts.

Be sure information is public

• Companies sometimes discuss plans/ideas informally at events. It's often a good idea to ask before sharing information on social media if it might be considered non-public. (For example, information presented during a talk at a conference should be fair game. Information shared over dinner may not be for public dissemination.)

Apache projects do not have "sponsors"

• Apache projects do not have sponsors, nor do they directly accept sponsorships. Do not use language like "Welcome ExampleCo as a new sponsor of Apache Foo".
• Companies can sponsor events and activities. For instance, "ExampleCo is hosting a CloudStack meetup in Atlanta this weekend" may be appropriate if it is factually true.

Don't use Apache project social media accounts to promote unrelated commercial activities.

• Apache projects must be governed independently of commercial influence.
• As a vendor-neutral non-profit, the ASF and all Apache projects do not take sides, or endorse or support any particular vendor over other vendors. Supporting one vendor over another, or posting information critical of a specific vendor is not a good idea.

When in doubt, ask

If you're unclear on whether a post or item is OK, ask first on the appropriate dev@ or other mailing list for your project. The other contributors on the list should always be happy to discuss and offer guidance on what is and isn't appropriate for your project's social media activities.

Other Important Apache Practices And Policies¶

It's helpful to familiarize yourself with Apache's Media and Analyst Relations pages and PMC brand management pages.

Some of the ASF's official Twitter accounts are @TheASF, @ApacheCon, and @ASFBrands, and many projects run their own official Twitter accounts.

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Nothing in this ASF webpage shall be interpreted to allow any third party to claim any association with the Apache Software Foundation or any of its projects or to imply any approval or support by ASF for any third party products or services.

These guidelines are meant to document best practices for use of social media using Apache brands, and do not override or replace our formal Trademark Policy. If you have any questions about trademarks or branding, please read our trademark resources or contact us. If you have questions or suggestions about these guidelines, please contact the Community Development PMC.

Thanks and credit to the Apache CloudStack Social Media Guidelines.