Social Media

Images and Video

Images

Social media is an onslaught of content coming at users a mile a minute. What makes them slow down to pay attention? Images!

Images should be used to draw attention to your content, not as the sole means of transmitting information. Please avoid posting flyers that promote events on social media. They are generally not sized properly, are not accessible to users with disabilities and are not a best practice.

Sizing

Please size your images properly for the platform you are using. Images that are not properly sized can be worse than no photo at all!

A tweet with a properly sized image

A properly cropped image will be sized correctly for the platform it is being hosted on. Each platform is different, so if you are sharing the same image across multiple channels then you will need to resize it for each post.

A tweet with an image that is cut off because it was not sized properly.

An image that is improperly cropped may be cut off or look distorted. Posting a vertical photo on Twitter, for instance, will result in Twitter centering the image which does not look good to viewers.

Images should only be cropped smaller, not enlarged to become bigger. Enlarged photos and graphics become pixelated.

Copyright

Make sure you have the rights to use images on social media. You should only use images for which Brandeis holds the copyright (taken by the university photographer), images you have asked permission to use or stock images that you have purchased rights to use. We recommend iStockphoto. It is affordable and has a substantial database of images. Please note that both Facebook and Twitter will often automatically pull images from the link you use. With this functionality, you do not need to worry about asking for permission because it is implied.

Video

Video is an increasingly important part of digital strategy. Not every video needs to be polished, but they should reflect the standards of your team. Short, fun videos are made for social media. All video must be captioned.

Only post videos that you have the rights to, and remember that extends to music! There are many royalty-free music sites available for use, including Bensound.

Upload videos to the channel on which you want to share the content. Do not link to a website where a video is embedded when you could upload it directly to Facebook or Twitter. Though we recommend shorter videos (up to three minutes), Facebook allows you to upload videos that are under 45 minutes. On Twitter, videos can be up to a minute. If a video is too long to post natively on Twitter, you can link to YouTube or Vimeo. By posting videos natively, they autoplay and are given preference by the channels' algorithms so more people will see it.

Don't forget that videos can be posted in more than one location. For instance, videos produced by the Office of Communications are posted on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter (when of the appropriate length).