A set of social media guidelines has been released by the UGA Office of Public Affairs and the university’s Social Media Advisory Committee.
The guidelines were created by a group of university communicators from across campus and were modeled after “best practice” guidelines from the communications industry and other universities.
“We wanted to create one set of guidelines for the dozens of voices who use social media to speak on UGA’s behalf,” said Wendy Jones, executive assistant to the vice president for public affairs and chair of the committee. “Our hope is the suggestions will give these communicators clear direction for decision making when a conflict or conundrum arises.”
The guidelines include common sense information like thinking before you post, as well as information on use of the university logo, and posting photos at 72 dots per inch to protect intellectual property.
When launching a new social media site, the guidelines recommend having at least 10 quality posts before announcing the site to anyone. (For more social media tips, see News To Use, at lower left).
The guidelines will be updated annually.
According to the latest social media inventory, there are 248 UGA-related entities with some type of social media presence, including 237 Facebook pages, 102 Twitter accounts, 27 YouTube channels, 45 non-personal Linkedin accounts, 12 Flickr accounts and two Pinterest accounts.
These social media accounts are referenced on UGA’s online A-Z index. Accounts not already on the index (http://www.uga.edu/a-z/a), can be added by using the “Suggest a Link” button.
For faculty and staff who want to learn more about or discuss using social media, an informal social media users group has been formed and a Listserv (www.listserv.uga.edu/archives/smug.html) has been created to facilitate discussion. Any future meetings or educational opportunities will be posted to this Listserv.