Office of Marketing and Communications

All students, faculty, staff and other official personnel who manage or contribute to official Brandeis social media channels are required to adhere to the university's official social media guidelines. These guidelines do not pertain to student groups or to the personal use of social media by students, staff and faculty members.

• Take a screenshot of the post and send it to Matthew Rushton, director of public safety, and the social media team.
• Immediately call Public Safety at 781-736-3333.

Yes, we maintain a comprehensive list of social media best practices on our website. In addition, a member of our team is happy to answer specific questions you may have about managing your social media presence.

As you approach your current social media channels or consider adopting new platforms, consider the following questions. We recommend that you work with your team to answer these questions and refer back to your responses as you gain momentum.

Set Goals

• Who is your audience? Which group(s) of people do you hope to reach?

• What results do you hope to achieve?

• How can these results be measured?

• What role does social media play into your overall communications strategy?

Determine Messaging

• What are your department or unit's main points that you wish to communicate?

• What do you want your audience to remember about your department?

Choose Your Channel

• What channels are you already using?

• What works and what does not work on your current channels?

• What channels are you considering? Why?

• What social networks is your audience using?

• Do you have the time and ability to create content, curate information and respond to your audience? Keep in mind that you should be posting a minimum of three to four times per week on Facebook, once a day on Twitter, and two to three times a week on Instagram.

• How will you monitor your channels? How do you plan on dealing with negative comments?

Brainstorm Content

• What information is of interest to your audience? What information do they need to know?

• What content is most engaging?

• Do you already have appropriate content on hand? If not, how will you get or create it?

Yes, social media can be a major driver to help grow your event audience. Before you share your event on social media, be sure to submit your event to the Brandeis Campus Calendar, the university's central, comprehensive events calendar.

Our website lists several other ideas for promoting your events. These include:

• Create a Facebook event and invite faculty, student leaders and participants to join the event and share with their peers.

• Design appropriately sized and high contrast graphics.

• Use #Brandeis on Twitter and Instagram, and make sure to geotag @BrandeisUniversity on Instagram.

• Share more than once in different ways. Don't be afraid to remind your audiences about upcoming events!

• Consider other types of content, such as throwback photos, news stories related to lecture content or trivia questions, to promote your event.

• Partner with co-sponsors or other departments on campus to reach out to their audiences on social media.

Also keep in mind that the main Brandeis University social media channels reach a broad array of audiences. While event promotion is not a core part of our strategy, we offer a few ways to help elevate your events to a broader audience and drive traffic back to your social media channels.

Yes, we offer several training opportunities for social media managers:

• Office hours — We hold regular office hours to answer questions and offer guidance to the community. We may meet one-on-one or in small groups. Please meet with us before launching a new social media presence so we can work with you to shine. Email the social media team for more information.

• Accessibility training — All managers of official social media accounts are required to take a course in creating accessible content that is usable by all people, regardless of physical or developmental abilities or impairments. Email the social media team to request training.

• Other training — Each semester, campus communicators who are responsible for social media meet to discuss our recent successes, challenges and questions as a group. We also delve deeper into one specific area of interest. Request more information.

Our website offers a list of several helpful resources for maintaining your social media channels:

• Analytics and metrics — Measuring success comes in many forms. After developing a strategy with goals, tracking metrics helps you understand your baseline and know if your content is succeeding.

• Video captioning — Captions are required for all videos. While Facebook and YouTube both have options for closed captions, it is a best practice to create open captions for your videos. These must be created when the video is produced.

• Graphics and photos — Learn where to turn to create eye-catching graphics and edit memorable photos.

• Schedulers and social listening — It is helpful to have a place to schedule your content and "listen" in one place. There are many options at many price points.

Start by visiting our social media website. All of the information contained in these FAQs — and a lot more — can be found there. Also, feel free to contact us at social-media@brandeis.edu.