Why Use Social Media?

When managed effectively, social networking is useful to:

• Engage in conversation with our community
• Build and maintain strong relationships with our online community
• Promote programs and events
• Reach followers with last-minute news and alerts
• Provide quick links to online information.

Is Social Media Right For You?

Here are some questions to ask yourself before starting a social media account:

• What is the primary purpose of your account?
  Engaging new students? Recruitment? Retention? Be sure that your message connects to your goals.
• Who are your audiences?
  Prospective students? Current students? Alumni? Staff and faculty? Some combination? Remember to consider who will be reading your content, and choose topics and language appropriate for that audience.
• What type or variety of content do you want to share?
  Upcoming events? Student stories? Multimedia projects? Your content should address both your goals and your audience, but most importantly it should add value.
• Who will be responsible for maintaining the account? 
  This should be one individual who has the responsibility to make content decisions.
• How much time are you willing to dedicate to managing your account? 
  30 minutes every day is a good start.
• How are you going to evaluate/measure your success?
  Number of followers is much less meaningful than the types of engagements you have.

Maintaining a social media presence requires a real-time commitment that can involve a half hour or more per day. Without that commitment, you may find that starting a page is not in your best interest. If you are uncertain or have further questions, contact URI’s Social Media Coordinator.

Registering and Maintaining Your Official Account

All officially recognized University accounts should be approved by a department head and registered with the Communications and Marketing Office. Each social media page must have an administrator assigned to it. Each page administrator should be a University faculty and/or staff member. Students are not permitted to be page administrators for official University units. This individual will be responsible for the creation and maintenance of fresh, relevant content as set forth in the posting guidelines section below.

All social media pages should adhere to the following minimum posting requirements:

• Facebook: once per week
• Twitter: once per week
• Instagram: once per week
• Blogs: once per month

These are the University’s minimum requirements. More frequent use of social media pages is universally accepted and encouraged. However, posting on Facebook should be limited to no more than two per day. More frequent posts will turn followers off and make them more likely to “unlike” your page.

Inactive pages reflect poorly on the University and will no longer be recognized as official.

Posting Etiquette

• Get permission. You must have written permission prior to using any copyrighted or proprietary materials such as music, art, photographs, videos or texts. In general, verbal or written permission (or a Photo Release Form) must be obtained from individuals whose images are identifiable.
• Be careful. Personally identifiable information that can be used to locate someone offline, including but not limited to phone numbers, home or local addresses, birth date, and e-mail addresses, should not be posted.
• Know the rules. Become familiar with Website Policies and Standards and media guidelines.
• Be transparent/authentic. When using an officially recognized social media channel, identify yourself and be clear about our role and goals. Assume at all times that you are representing the University of Rhode Island.
• Be accurate. Evaluate the accuracy and truth of your posting before making it public. If you find out something you’ve posted is untrue after you post it, retract and correct it as quickly as possible.
• Be respectful. Respect for the dignity of others and to the civil and thoughtful discussion of opposing ideas is critical. Feel free to respectfully disagree with a position but please do not propagate online confrontation as it reflects poorly on both the individual and URI.
• Listen before you engage.
• Be positive. A good rule of thumb: if you would not say it in person, don’t say it online.
• Encourage open conversation. Listen to people and respond to as many comments as possible with constructive feedback. Allow negative comments, delete the spam, and seek to respond rather than censor.
• Add value. There should be a reason for every post you make. No need to waste anyone’s time with filler (the reader’s time or your own).
• Be active and timely in your responses.
• Separate personal from professional.
• Exercise common sense in any online activity, realizing that anyone can access and view what you have posted.

Branding Guidelines

The following guidelines are in place to strengthen the University brand and identity in social media, to elevate the credibility of affiliated social media pages through association with the University, and to enhance the user experience through easy search for University affiliated pages.

LOGOS, AVATARS, and PROFILE IMAGES

• Social media icons and profile images must include use the University wordmark logo, in gold, inside a dark blue bar beneath the graphic that represents the affiliated organization. The template is available from Communications and Marketing.
• Graphics representing the affiliated organization may be photographic images, illustrations, or your official “unit entity”.
• To use the athletics logo, you must have permission from the Communications and Marketing Office.
• Do not stretch, distort, or alter the University logo in any way.
• University of Rhode Island logos, tagline graphics, or other “official” representation elements may not be used for personal social media accounts or for unofficial affiliated accounts, without express permission from the University of Rhode Island Communications and Marketing Office.

PAGE NAMES and BACKGROUNDS

• Social media page names must use the full name of the University, rather than an abbreviation. For example, say “University of Rhode Island Multicultural Center” instead of simply “URI Multicultural Center. (Existing accounts that do not use “University of Rhode Island” will be grandfathered in by this policy.)
• Twitter handles must begin with “URI” and end with the name of the affiliated organization. For example: “URINews,” “URIDining,” “URIAdmission,” etc. (Existing pages that do not use “URI” to begin their handle will be grandfathered in by this policy.)

CONTENT ON YOUR SOCIAL PAGES

• Include links to the University’s main Facebook Page, Twitter page, Instagram account, YouTube Channel, etc., on your respective social media pages.
• Content should reflect the mission, values, and priorities of the University, not the personal views of the poster. Do not endorse private companies, products, political candidates, etc.
• Remember the University’s branded “voice” in your posts. The “voice” is involves word choice, tone, and sentence structure that is simultaneously confident and humble, informative and casual, witty and intelligent. It is surprisingly void of educational jargon and acronyms, and full of common sense and conversational speech.
• Always use spell check before posting.
• Avoid using “text speak” when you post. For example, “See you later” would be acceptable, while “C U L8er” would not.
• Social media algorithms encourage posts with images and videos. Posts and tweets with text only will not create as much engagement with your audience.

RULES FOR POSTING CONTENT

• Copyright: You must have written permission prior to using any copyrighted or proprietary materials such as music, art, photographs, videos or texts. If sharing someone else’s content on social media, please ask for permission, tag their accounts when requested, and do not edit or manipulate shared media.
• Permission: In general, verbal or written permission (or a Photo Release Form) must be obtained from individuals whose images are identifiable.
• Personal Information: Personally identifiable information that can be used to locate someone offline, including but not limited to phone numbers, home or local addresses, birth date, and e-mail addresses, should not be posted.
• FERPA: Remember that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects the privacy of student education records. The University’s e-mail system (not Facebook or Twitter) must be used when communicating about an issue involving a specific student.
• Sensitive Information: Confidential or proprietary University information or similar information of third parties, who have shared such information with you on behalf of URI, should not be shared publicly on these social media channels.
• Be Aware of Liability: You are responsible for what you post on your own site and on the sites of others. Individual bloggers have been held liable for commentary deemed to be copyright infringement, defamatory, proprietary, libelous, or obscene (as defined by the courts). Increasingly, employers are conducting Web searches on job candidates before extending offers. Be sure that what you post today will not come back to haunt you.