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Official ¹û½´ÊÓƵ Social Media Channels

Social Media Guidelines

These guidelines are intended to help ¹û½´ÊÓƵ faculty and staff who want to create and manage social media presences on behalf of their academic or administrative departments.

¹û½´ÊÓƵ's public affairs office manages ¹û½´ÊÓƵ's institutional precense on social media* and ¹û½´ÊÓƵ's official Instagram and Facebook accounts. 

Faculty and staff members who manage a ¹û½´ÊÓƵ-affiliated site or comment on social media as representatives of the college are responsible for meeting the usual expectations for professional behavior and are responsible for complying with all applicable policies and laws:

• Dean of the Faculty’s Guidebook
• Discriminatory Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Policy (DHSM)
• ¹û½´ÊÓƵ Web Policy

Faculty, staff, and student workers who manage a ¹û½´ÊÓƵ-affiliated site or comment on social media as representatives of the college are also responsible for knowing and complying with any terms of service or policies set by the social media platforms they use when interacting via the account.

If you use your professional affiliation with ¹û½´ÊÓƵ on a site, it is important that you include a disclaimer such as, “The views expressed on this space are my own and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of ¹û½´ÊÓƵ.” Always disclose your affiliation to the college in situations where your comments are or may be perceived as biased due to your employment at ¹û½´ÊÓƵ.

Creating and managing a ¹û½´ÊÓƵ-affiliated site

• Get approval from your department chair or manager before registering a new ¹û½´ÊÓƵ-affiliated social media account.
• Consider your goals for social media when determining what platforms would be most appropriate. 
  • Do you have the resources to maintain the site? Who is your audience? Does it reflect ¹û½´ÊÓƵ’s values? Will you have enough content to keep the account active? 
• Carefully consider your target audience when creating a ¹û½´ÊÓƵ-affiliated social media account and which format will best suit your purposes (private group, public page, etc.). This may be an internal audience—such as a class, department, or club—or an external audience—such as prospective students and their families, alumni, or members of the local community.
• When creating an account, choose a password and username that can be shared with other members of your department or office. Some sites, such as Youtube, will not release a channel once it has been claimed, even if you tell them that the person who was managing the channel has left ¹û½´ÊÓƵ and you no longer have the password.
• When creating an account, choose an appropriate name. For example, a Twitter handle for Life Beyond ¹û½´ÊÓƵ might be @LifeBeyond¹û½´ÊÓƵ. Use the full name of ¹û½´ÊÓƵ somewhere in your profile.
• Identify those who will be responsible for managing and updating the site. Set clear expectations for their role. Account administrators should be able to check the site at least once daily and, in general, update it with new content several times a week.
• Remember that anything you post in your role as a member of ¹û½´ÊÓƵ’s faculty or staff (including as a student worker) reflects on ¹û½´ÊÓƵ.
• Use digital metrics provided by the social media site to monitor and improve on your success.
• When social media account administrators leave ¹û½´ÊÓƵ, their ability to manage the site should be eliminated. The supervisor of the employee(s) responsible for posting to a ¹û½´ÊÓƵ-affiliated social media site should monitor the page regularly, as they bear overall responsibility for the content and use of that page.

Social media best practices

• Engage and monitor. Be active, timely, and responsive. Schedule time to check your site(s) on a regular basis. Do more than just share news. Offer insights, comment on interesting posts, and encourage related dialogues.
• Be professional and respectful.
• Be transparent. You should be open and transparent about who you work for, who you represent or on whose behalf you may be speaking. Never misrepresent who you are or post as another individual.
• Always remember social media outlets are public spaces. Despite privacy settings, start with the assumption that anything you say can be read by anyone, anywhere, at any time and remember that the internet has a long memory.
• Be accurate. Posts should be accurate and fact-checked and capable of substantiation. If you do make a mistake, ensure you correct it promptly and acknowledge the revision with an apology and good humor.
• Respect intellectual property including trademarked names and slogans and copyrighted material. Make sure you have permission to post copyright items, properly attribute the work to the copyright owner where required, and never use someone else’s work as if it were your own.
• Respect privacy. Unless a photo was taken at a public event for which there would be no reasonable expectation of privacy, every person in the photo must have communicated their consent (verbally, by email, or by signing a consent form) to the public use of the photo. Do not include personally identifiable information that can be used to locate any individual without that person’s written permission.
• Respond quickly to comments needing a response, but remember not every social media comment warrants a response. Don’t respond at all in situations where you’ll only be adding fuel to the fire. You don’t have to respond to vague or spammy comments or non-sequiturs, but questions and honest reviews do deserve your input. Take concerns offline when appropriate.
• Avoidance is the best policy when dealing with internet trolls—online commenters who post inflammatory and harmful content. Report the troll to a moderator or the site owner if they persist.

*Social media channels include blogs, wikis, social networks, social bookmarking services, user rating services, and any other online collaboration, sharing, or publishing platform, whether accessed through the web, a mobile device, text messaging, email, or any other existing or emerging communications platform.