Overview
Social media helps showcase what defines and distinguishes the University of Rhode Island through storytelling, community engagement, and timely communication. It allows University units to connect directly with their audiences, share important information, and build meaningful relationships in the digital spaces where people spend their time.
Each University account should have a clear purpose, a defined audience, and a plan for delivering content that is relevant, engaging, accessible, and aligned with University goals. A successful social media presence requires strategy, consistency, ongoing management, and a commitment to accessibility so content can be understood and used by all audiences.
These guidelines are designed to help University units build strong, recognizable accounts that support both their individual objectives and the University’s broader reputation.
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.