Vanderbilt University Best Practices for a Successful Social Media Presence

Vanderbilt University Best Practices for a Successful Social Media Presence

Common sense goes a long toward making the best use of social media. This sample policy will help you guide your team as they put their best foot forward on social networks like Twitter and Facebook and avoid spending too much time ‘cyberslacking.’

Vanderbilt University uses social media tools like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and
Flickr to share information about campus activities with the world.

More importantly, these tools offer a kind of “conversation” between the institution
and students, faculty, staff, fans and friends that is more immediate and direct than
traditional forms of communication.

The University’s “Best Practices for a Successful Social Media Presence” provides
general recommendations on how to successfully represent the institution when creating
content using social media.

These common-sense rules include:

Separate personal from professional. Balancing your professional
and personal social media presences can be tricky, particularly if you are an avid user
in both arenas. Content that is appropriate and of interest to your personal friends is
most likely not appropriate or of interest to your department’s “friends.” Keep these
two presences as separate as possible by keeping content about your non-work life on
your personal page.

Don’t cyberslack. Endless amounts of time can be spent, and wasted,
on social media sites. Limit the amount of time you spend attending to your
department’s social media presence to what is needed to post content, evaluate traffic
data, review related sites, and monitor comments. Limit your personal use of these
sites while at work as directed by your department’s guidelines.

The attached ZIP file includes:

• Intro Page.doc
• Cover Sheet and Terms.pdf
• Vanderbilt University Best Practices for a Successful Media Presence.pdf