Creating a Social Media Account for Your Department
So, you’re thinking about creating an Instagram account for your department? Congratulations! You are well on your way to becoming an official brand ambassador for CCS. Before you get busy posting, here are some tips, tricks and policies to help guide you along on your CCS social media journey…
Getting Started
First things first, before creating your official CCS social media channel, please send a proposal to Marketing & Communications for review and approval:
All accounts must be approved through the Office of Marketing & Communications, who will provide governance, oversight and advice to all department social media administrators. If your account predates this new process, we are requesting that all existing accounts go through this same approval process. Approvals will be sent back within two business weeks. Please consider the following questions when considering a new social account:
- What are your goals for the account?
- Who is your target audience?
- What platform are you hoping to use & why?
- How often are you going to post?
- What kind of content will you post?
- Are you able to provide enough content to maintain a social presence year-round?
- How will this support the college as a whole as well as the individual department/office?
- Do you have the time to do this well?
Official Social Media Policy
The following are guidelines for placing CCS-related content on social media sites.
Account Management and Monitoring
Tag, you’re it! Every departmental social account needs at least one, full-time staff or faculty member managing it. To prevent lapses in engagement or turnover, please add CCS’s social media manager, Amber Zundel, as an admin to the account and be sure to share your login information as well. CCS’ Social Media Manager reserves all rights to review and remove inappropriate content and to shut down inactive accounts.
Content Owners are responsible for posting and using content and maintaining compliance with HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations and CCS policies concerning privacy, security, human services and FERPA (Federal Education Records Protection Act).
Social Media Dos
- Catalog and retain an official account inventory and contact info for everyone who is posting/involved.
- Create, maintain and monitor content on respective social media platforms and engage with users.
- Post consistent, clear, quality content. Follow these posting guidelines from Coschedule.
- Moderate content that violates hosting terms of service or is of a threatening/harassing nature.
- Follow CCS’s main accounts and share when appropriate.
- Ensure all content is relevant to the goals and objectives and upholds the standards and brand pillars of CCS.
Social Media Don’ts
- Don’t leave people hanging. Make sure you answer comments and dms in a timely manner. The common courtesy rule at CCS is no longer than 24 hours. Also, make sure your responses are courteous, professional and conversational.
- Don’t post content that violates any laws or regulations.
- Don’t use the College’s brand/name to endorse any view, product, private business, cause or political candidate.
- Don’t represent personal opinions as college-endorsed views/policies.
Brand Standards and Style Guide
We’re an art school (#duh). We need to make sure our social accounts look better than your standard, boring, ol’ university accounts. To ensure that, follow these simple brand guidelines:
- We need to make sure our account names are consistent. For undergraduate programs, please name your account ccs_departmentname. Ex: ccs_artpractice, ccs_photography, ccs_transportation. For graduate programs, please name your account ccsgrad_departmentname. Ex: ccsgrad_cmd
- Make sure your profile picture includes the abbreviated CCS logo as well as your department name and is approved by Marketing & Communications.
- Include the College’s main handle in your bio (ex. @ccs_detroit Product Design Department)
Your biography or about section should reflect your department description found on your CCS department site. - Follow CCS’s Style Guide when designing posts, stories, etc. Consider using our official fonts, the official CCS colors, logos, etc.
Images
A few things to consider when posting:
- Are your images sized correctly for posting?
- Are your images crisp and clear?
- Do your images properly represent the College and your department?
For more sizing info check out Sprout Social’s Always Up-to-Date Guide to Social Media Image Sizes.
Gifs
To “Gif” or “jif”? That is the question.
Eh. Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that they are fun, engaging and CCS Marketing & Communications has a library of them at your disposal. You can find them here and can watch our how-to video below:
Going “Live”
Do you have a cool demo planned during your class? A guest lecturer? These are great reasons to “go live.” So, how do you do it? Watch our how-to video below:
Hashtags and Tagging
Hashtags are super important. It’s an easy way to connect your content to a specific topic, event, theme or conversation. Hashtags also make it easier to discover posts around specific topics, because hashtags aggregate all social media content with that same hashtag.
We request you use the following hashtags when posting:
#ccsdetroit #ccsalumni #ccsfamily
Be sure to tag the official @ccs_detroit account on all posts. This will give the Marketing & Communications team an opportunity to see all posts and share on the main account, when appropriate. Mentioning and tagging brings awareness to additional pages from the CCS community. Tagging also shows your content to a broader audience — the audience of both your account and the page you tag — meaning your message will reach more people.
Personal Accounts
Want to rep CCS on your personal social account? Awesome! Here are a few things to remember before you get started.
Including CCS in your profile is one way to spread the word – but doing so means agreeing to act professionally on your account. Clearly identify yourself as an employee of the College in any business-related discussions. Be respectful and note that your opinions do not represent the views and opinions of CCS, unless specifically authorized to do so.
Sensitive information should never be shared via social platforms (yes, even over Direct Messages).
Be aware of liability. You are legally liable for what you post on your own sites and on others.
Questions or Advice?
Starting a social media account can seem overwhelming at times. Don’t hesitate to reach out to our Social Media Manager, Amber Zundel for strategy and advice.
Amber Zundel
CCS Social Media Manager
313.407.6798
[email protected] ;
