Otis College Social Media Guidelines

1. Use a friendly tone when writing posts.
2. Respond to direct messages (DMs) within a reasonable timeframe, (preferably within 24) hours.
3. If you manage a social media account, check for tags, comments, and messages daily.
4. Consider creating a document with answers to commonly asked questions. You can also save common replies within some platforms, like Facebook. Consider sharing FAQs with communications to aid responses to questions posed to central Otis College accounts.
5. Follow the Otis College Brand Guidelines, where applicable, for use of brand colors, fonts, and logos.
6. Adhere to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which the Department of Education instituted to protect student privacy while attending Otis College.
7. Verify information before you post it. At times this may mean cross-checking the information with a reputable news source (such as the New York Times or Los Angeles Times, or the Otis website (not Wikipedia), and/or emailing faculty/staff to confirm information.
8. Double check all links before posting by clicking on them yourself.
9. Be relevant and timely whenever possible.
10. Keep written communications clear and simple.
11. Only ask the audience to take one action per post (e.g. swipe up to read, click the link in bio, download this app).
12. Adhere to the terms of service or use of the social media platform that you are using. 
    • Facebook: Terms of Service
    • Twitter: Terms of Service
    • Instagram: Terms of Use
    • TikTok: Terms of Service
    • Youtube: Terms of Service

• Please keep in mind that while there is a wide audience for Otis College social media accounts, including prospective students and their families, alumnx, faculty/staff, students, donors, and industry professionals, prospective students and their families should be considered the primary audience, unless the account has another specific audience, such as current students in a club or organization.
• The official Otis College social media accounts are not an extension of the Otis College leadership or administration. If someone has a question, please email the respective staff/faculty member directly. Contact us here.
• Creating Visual Design
  • Keep backgrounds simple and easy to read text over (when text is involved).
  • Limit the use of images under text that may make reading difficult.
  • Use the official color schemes and logos outlined in the Brand Guidelines listed on the Communications and Marketing web page as much as possible.
  • Use bright colors that catch people’s attention.
  • Consider using Canva, Unfold, Flickr, and Unsplash to help with your visual design and imagery.
• Linking to Websites
  • Always check links to ensure they are active, with no typos, by clicking on them  and/or copying and pasting the URLs into a new browser before posting. If an incorrect link is posted to Twitter, you will need to delete the tweet and replace it with an updated version with a correct link.. Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn allow you to make edits to a post, however, always plan to get it right the first time so that as many people as possible can access the information as soon as it is shared.
     
  • Our preferred link management website is Bitly. Bitly is a URL shortening service that also shares analytics that allow you to view how many people have clicked on your link and in what time period. It also allows you to customize the ending of your link. A shortened link is especially useful in reducing the amount of characters you use within a post (for example with Twitter, which limits posts to a specified number of characters). 

Community Building

• When responding to direct messages and comments, remain friendly and accessible. Respond as quickly as possible to questions. Feel free to thank people for reaching out and to let them know that they can message again to ask questions at any time.
• Post at regular intervals (every other day, once a week, twice a month, etc.). You can also cross-promote through your various channels (campus posters, emails, word-of-mouth, etc.), both online and offline. If you have a brochure or a website, use them to drive people to your social media channels by listing your social media account handles. Please keep in mind the various restrictions on links on different platforms (for example, people cannot click on URLs in the comments and captions on Instagram feed posts).
• There are many ways to measure success. Having active and engaged users is just as important as increasing followers. A successful online community requires a commitment to engaging and posting regularly and develops over time. Building an engaged community may include connecting with other Otis-related accounts to cross promote events or developing joint events and/or social media campaigns.

Otis Employees

• You should consider that many Otis students are on the same social media platforms as you are and therefore can see what you post if your accounts are public. You are under no obligation to maintain a public account and should adjust your privacy settings according to your comfort level, with students possibly seeing what you post on each platform.
• If interacting with students or prospective students online, Otis employees are expected to maintain the same level of professionalism that would be expected in any Otis College context.
• Please be aware that posts and comments shared  by Otis College staff and faculty on their personal social media accounts are not reflective of the views of the College, nor should they be presented as such.

Creating an Otis-related Social Media Account

If you are interested in creating an Otis-related social media account for your club, class, department, or other college initiative, please complete the Otis College Social Media Account Registration Form. You must also email the head of your department or Campus Life (if you represent a student-oriented account) to notify them of your desire to create an Otis-related account. Once approved, please contact the Social Media Marketing Manager to discuss goals, and content planning for your account, and consider joining a scheduled Social Media training session on Zoom hosted by the Communications and Marketing Department. 

General Best Practices

• Social media accounts representing any aspect of Otis College should be logged into a minimum of once per day to monitor and respond to posts, comments, mentions, etc.
   
• Be present and responsive. Having an official social media account at Otis requires maintenance and upkeep, including answering users’ questions and monitoring comments. We strongly discourage establishing and then deserting or not regularly checking a social media account. The Communications and Marketing department may initiate conversations with account managers that are not updating accounts on a regular basis in order to share advice that can reframe social media goals and strategize content curation.
   
• The ideal frequency of updates varies for each social media platform. Use a calendar to plan your posts. Incorporate for important milestones and cultural connections into your content schedule and then publish. Plan to publish content consistently. You can choose from a number of free services (Sprout, Later, Hootsuite, etc.) that allow you to schedule content to post at a later date. 

Measurement and Analytics

• Measurement and analytics are key to assessing your success in social media.
• Software applications such as Sprout or Hootsuite can help you organize your use and monitoring of Twitter. Facebook and Instagram Insights offer a wealth of knowledge, and Google Alerts can help you track keywords related to your account.

Community Building

• Don’t judge your success solely on numbers. While it is tempting to use views, fans, or followers as a metric by which to assess your engagement in social media, it is not the ideal measurement. In social media, quality trumps quantity. Every community is different.
• Success with building community via social media is not an end result; it is a process. 

Facebook

Managers of Facebook pages at Otis should check on the page at least once a day and should have enough content to post at least once a week. Each Otis Facebook page should have at least two staff or faculty members as administrators.

• Do not create a personal profile for a College department, organization, or office. Creating a personal account for anything other than an individual person is a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service and Facebook warns that violators are at risk of “permanently losing access to the account and all of its content.”
• Pay attention to your Insights. Facebook Insights offers a lot of information on the people who like your page and what they are interested in.
• Be visually pleasing and accessible. Users visiting your page are drawn to visually appealing layouts and posts.
• Make sure all your links work before and after posting.

Instagram

Instagram is a photo and video sharing app that allows users to apply digital filters, frames, and special effects to their photos and videos. The features of Instagram are constantly expanding. Instagram is owned by Facebook. Managers of Instagram accounts at Otis should check on the account at least once a day and have enough content to post a few times each week via the Instagram Feed, Stories, IGTV, and/or Reels.

• Use hashtags. Like Twitter, Instagram uses hashtags. Adding hashtags to your posts means that more people may see them, since they may be searching that specific hashtag. Use hashtags that are relevant to the posted content.
   
• Instagram Stories are special photos and videos that are seen by followers for 24 hours. If the Instagram account has more than 10K followers, the account can use the link feature to swipe up directly to external websites. 

Twitter

Twitter encourages frequent text updates, responding to followers, and retweeting content. Account managers at Otis must be able to log-in to the account at least once per day and should be able to post often and respond to direct messages or tweets in a timely manner. 

• When it’s appropriate, respond to direct messages or tweets. If you want to find and read tweets about Otis, or any other subject, you can search by names and terms using the search bar.
• Twitter allows you to choose various streams to monitor, so you can monitor tweets that mention you, search terms, direct messages, etc.

Flickr

Flickr is an image hosting website and online community. Photos can be shared from Flickr on Facebook and Twitter and other social networking sites. The Communications and Marketing Department controls and curates the official Otis College Flickr.  

• You can find the best campus shots curated by our Creative Director and Digital Media Specialist here: Best of Otis College.
• Share only original photos. Due to copyright issues, you should only post your own original photos to Flickr. Email the Digital Media Specialist if you have questions about the Flickr account or photo credits.
• Add hashtags to your photos. Tagging your photos makes it easier for users to find your images in searches. Be sure to include “Otis” or “Otis College” as tags.

YouTube and Vimeo

YouTube and Vimeo are video hosting/sharing platforms that showcase a variety of content. Videos can be shared on other social media platforms or taken from the platforms and embedded directly on a user’s blog or website. 

• Do not use copyrighted material (i.e. material that you did not create). If you want to set your video to music, you must use royalty-free music and sound effects. To use a copyrighted piece, you must contact its owner. Once you’ve received permission, always get official permission from the creator before sharing art. 

This policy applies to how the official Otis College accounts are managed by the Communications and Marketing team. Otis College reserves the right to moderate comments on the College’s social media platforms. The College encourages thoughtful community discourse online, while using discretion to remove comments that: 

1. Are defamatory or obscene
2. Violate the College’s Responsible Use Policies, or other policies outlined in The Hoot or the Faculty/Staff Handbook
3. Include profanity
4. Publish a person’s private email address, phone number, address, birth date, Social Security number, or other personally identifiable information
5. Publish information protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
6. Include affiliate marketing, link referral codes, junk mail, spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or unsolicited commercial advertisements
7. Stereotype, intimidate, or are hateful toward an individual or group of individuals on the basis of religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, nationality, age, health, or disability
8. Fabricate, deceive, or mislead
9. Violate any other Otis College policy. Policies can be found on the Otis Dashboard.