Social Media Guidelines
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Overview
BYU Alumni maintains and promotes participation on social media profiles and platforms with the following purposes:
- Continue to build and market the BYU brand
- Build and maintain our online campus community:
- Build and maintain relationships with and among Alumni and friends to celebrate, recognize and encourage support of BYU
- Give opportunities to serve through mentoring, job/internship placement, and philanthropy.
- Provide information to alumni and friends, create resources to assist with their needs, and provide a forum for appropriate discussion of relevant topics.
- Reach out to new and potential students to help them decide to enroll and transition to campus life, and to answer their questions in an environment in which they are comfortable.
- Increase the amount of high-quality, university-related content available online.
- Receive and respond to feedback received through social media channels.
Additionally, we hope our efforts will assist the university’s sponsor, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in building the kingdom of God and bringing people to Christ.
Approval for Creating Accounts
Social media accounts/profiles may be set up by authorized BYU Alumni Chapters and may use the BYU name and likeness on these accounts. “BYU Alumni” should be used in the name of the account/profile.
Account Setup
BYU Alumni Chapter leaders should follow the steps below when setting up a new social media account/profile:
- Control and accountability should reside with the current leadership (the Chapter Chair and/or Vice-Chair of Social Media): account login and password should be given to the Chapter Chair and it should be checked regularly. Comments or posts deemed to be inappropriate should be removed.
- Presence of branding elements: BYU Alumni Office can provide a branded image that can include the Chapter name, to be used as the profile image/avatar on Facebook / Twitter / Instagram. Contact the Alumni office (via Facebook @BYUAlumni) for recommendations.
- Preferred naming of profile: “BYU Alumni [San Diego] Chapter”
- Link back to alumni.byu.edu: Social media, like Facebook, is simply another communication tool. Make this clear through profile information and descriptions by connecting users to where there might be more information online.
Appropriate Content and Guidelines
Those responsible for adding content and responding to posts on the accounts/profiles represent the Chapter and the university. It is important to exercise proper digital citizenship. Use the following guidelines when posting content. Content that falls outside of these boundaries will be moderated and accounts should be blocked or removed.
- Be accurate
- Be respectful
- Take the high ground
- Be aware of liability
- Stay on topics related to BYU and BYU Alumni
- Maintain confidentiality
- Don’t make endorsements
- Think before you post and re-read your posts
- Always tag/hashtag #BYUAlumni (Twitter/Instagram) or @BYUAlumni on Facebook
Facebook and Instagram Posting Tips
- 80/20 rule with content—do more than self-promote. 80% of your social media posts should inform, educate, and entertain your audience, while only 20% should directly promote your business.
- Use the inverted pyramid approach – put the most important information at the beginning of the post (most of the text will be truncated in longer post text)
- Use visual content when possible (interesting visuals creates more interaction)
- For Instagram, imagery is crucial – keep the imagery as beautiful as possible (if you do not think that you have enough interesting photos or short videos for Instagram, hold off on creating this profile) – here are guidelines for what makes a good Instagram image/video:
- Use natural light, don’t overexpose images, shoot at the right time, follow the rule of thirds, find interesting viewpoints, frame the subject, draw the viewer’s eye, add depth, get creative with finding symmetry/patterns/colors/humor/etc.
- If you have content that you would like to add to Instagram, but it doesn’t meet quality standards, consider adding it as a story (stories last 24 hours and are then removed [unless you highlight it, then it lasts until you remove it])
- Use natural light, don’t overexpose images, shoot at the right time, follow the rule of thirds, find interesting viewpoints, frame the subject, draw the viewer’s eye, add depth, get creative with finding symmetry/patterns/colors/humor/etc.
- For Instagram, imagery is crucial – keep the imagery as beautiful as possible (if you do not think that you have enough interesting photos or short videos for Instagram, hold off on creating this profile) – here are guidelines for what makes a good Instagram image/video:
- Feel free to follow other profiles and share relevant posts from those profiles
- Be consistent (need to stay updated at least 1-2 times every week)
- Post at different times (play with it to see what works for your audience, but typically the best times are between 11 am-6 pm)
- Hold contests
- Ask open-ended questions
- What would be your advice for incoming freshmen?
- Ask people directly to like your post – i.e. “Like this post if you can’t wait until our next tailgate party”
- Hold polls in Facebook posts or in Instagram stories
- Provide reminders, updates, and calendar items
- Give helpful information about BYU or the area
- Ask for feedback and suggestions
- Note: be courteous and accept the bad with the good.
- Responses maybe something like “Thank you for sharing your frustration. We would be happy to discuss this further. Please call us at … to schedule a time when we can meet”
- https://www.bluleadz.com/blog/the-dos-and-donts-of-responding-to-negative-social-media-comments
- Research libraries and tips
How to Host a Social Media Give Away
- Always show an image of what is being given away – preferably on the first image and if not on the first image then invite users to view the prize on the next image (this would be used in the case of a caption contest where you show the image you want people to comment a caption on first and then invite them to see the prize [the next image]).
- Because the text gets truncated, have the post text begins with the words “Giveaway” – it could be “Facebook GIVEAWAY”, “Instagram GIVEAWAY”, or “GIVEAWAY: Caption Contest…”, or similar text.
- Be very clear about how participants enter the drawing – if you want them to do multiple things, be specific that they need to do them all to enter the drawing. You can also ask them to do additional things in order to get entered into the drawing an additional time.
- Unless it is a caption contest, then let them know that the winners will be randomly selected. Give them a date when the winners will be announced.
- Before you announce a winner, comment on the winner’s comment (if you are asking them to comment to get entered into a drawing) and ask that they DM you (or email you at XYZ address to claim their prize) – then after they get in contact with you, announce the winner publicly.
- When you have a winner(s) then edit the post and have at the beginning of the post text something like “UPDATE: we have a winner…”
- NOTE: if you pay to promote a post then you will not be able to update the original text in this way and will just need to make a comment to announce the winner.
Examples
SHOWS THE PRIZE FIRST
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_XwoB9FwoD/
https://www.facebook.com/byualumni/photos/a.370936186263788/3199946960029349/?type=3&theater
CAPTION CONTEST
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-KX9CMhWuz/
https://www.facebook.com/byualumni/photos/a.370936186263788/3127255007298545/?type=3&theater
SPECTACULAR TICKETS (one that we paid to promote)