Social media best practice

• Proofread all posts

  As with any document, always check the spelling and grammar before posting. If possible, get another member of your team to QA posts before publishing. Where possible, follow the University’s house style when writing posts.

• Tone

  It is important that your channel represents your School, department, centre, or unit in a positive way, and the tone of your posts should reflect this.

  It is also important to think of the audience who are following you and what language they are most likely to respond to. Aim to avoid jargon-heavy and lengthy posts as this will be off-putting for your users. Users should be able to easily look at your post and understand what it is referring to.

• Content

  A user’s attention span for social media is short, therefore you have to make sure your content stands out and is engaging. Consider including either an image or a video on your posts as this generally receives higher engagement.

• Include a call to action

  You should see your social media posts as a signpost to more content. Therefore, you should include a call to action on your posts which links to a web page with more information.

• Do not break news

  News releases should be handled by Corporate Communications via the official channels. You should not break news or important announcements, or speculate about University business, via your channel. You should only share news which has been published on either the University news site or relevant School website or equivalent. 

• Consider the context

  Sometimes an otherwise acceptable post can appear insensitive or inappropriate depending on current world events. Before posting anything online, it is good to check news headlines and University press releases to see if there is anything to be aware of that might gain negative attention to your post.

• Engage diplomatically

  Social media is a platform designed for open discussion and opinion, and there may be times when users disagree with your opinion or challenge your thoughts. Although you may disagree, this does not mean that their opinion is wrong. You should never argue online, but rather engage diplomatically. Unless abusive or offensive, you should not delete user comments as this can often make matters worse and encourage users to post further negative comments.

• Use discretion

  You should never post anything on social media which may bring the University into disrepute or cause reputational risk. You should treat social media like any other news outlet: if you would not be happy to share it in a newspaper or on TV, you should not share it on social media.

• Seek permission

  Do not publish confidential or personal information, text, images, or video which may threaten the University’s interests or the privacy, safety, reputation and wellbeing of any member of staff, student or private individual.

  If you are sharing images or videos of people, ensure that you have their permission to do so first, or the permission of a parent or guardian if they are under the age of 18.

  Find out more about image permissions on the image standards page.

• Give accreditation

  Although social media is designed to share content between other users, you should not publish any text or content (images, videos, reports) which may infringe copyright. You should always seek the permission of the owner before sharing and credit them appropriately if asked to do so.

• Monitoring

  You should regularly monitor any social media account you are responsible for. Social media is the first place some users come for information and may use your channel to ask questions. It is important that you reply to all enquiries that you receive. If you do not know the answer to any questions, you should refer them to the relevant web page or ask them to email their questions to the appropriate department.

• Online abuse

  While it is encouraged that people share their opinions on social media, they should never be offensive, abusive or threatening to any individual, group of people or the University. Should you receive any abusive messages, you should not respond. Report the comment and the user to the channel you are using and inform Corporate Communications. Once the comment has been reported, you should delete the comment from your page to avoid further insult.

  If you or someone you know has experienced bullying, discrimination, abuse, assault or harassment of any sort, you can also report such incidents anonymously using the University’s Report and Support tool, which is aligned to institutional policies. You can also choose to use this tool to report using your contact details so a member of staff can get in touch with you to help provide support. This tool can be used by students, members of staff, members of the public or visitors to the University.

• Legal matters

  The University monitors social media channels operated by Schools and units and reserves the right to instruct the amendment, deletion or addition of content as appropriate to protect or enhance its reputation and the rights, privacy and wellbeing of staff and students.

  Social media should never be used in a way that breaches any University policy. Staff should familiarise themselves with the following University policies and procedures:

  • Dignity and respect at work policy
  • Disciplinary procedure
  • Equality policy
  • Copyright policy
  • Regulations governing the use of University ICT facilities.

  The University reserves the right to take disciplinary action against a member of staff in instances where a failure to follow these guidelines has resulted in a breach of any University policy.