Social Media Administrators' Resources
It is important that the Springfield College social media accounts comply with a uniform branding and policy to ensure a clear and consistent message. As a strategic communications effort to engage audiences across all branches of our College, these guidelines apply to any and all official social media accounts created to represent academic departments and programs, administrative offices, and College-sponsored clubs and organizations. They do not apply to an individual's private social media accounts.
All administrators posting on behalf of Springfield College on an official account must review our Social Media Guidelines and Best Practices. Administrators and accounts must also be registered with the Office of Marketing.
All official accounts must maintain the following branding guidelines:
- Use the triangle logo as your profile image (contact the Office of Marketing for the image).
- Use an official springfield.edu email address as a contact email.
- Link to a springfield.edu webpage within the profile/bio.
- The bio should include: ‘This is the Official _____ Page for ________ at Springfield College.’
- Whenever possible, include Springfield College in your handle; SC as a second option.
Additional Tips and Suggestions:
- Use #SpringfieldCollege whenever possible. Only needs to be used once within a post.
- Share posts from other official accounts and tag when relevant.
- Geotag your location as Springfield College when appropriate.
- Include photos, videos, or gifs to increase engagement.
- Use emojis when appropriate: 🔻
- Monitor daily, post frequently.
- Use Bitly to shorten URLs and track clicks.
Accessibility Standards:
By creating accessible social media content, administrators are ensuring a universal user experience. The following practices help ensure that a diverse audience is able to access and interact with our official accounts.
- Caption videos: Some platforms, such as Facebook, allow you to do this within the platform.
- Include alt text descriptions: Most major social media platforms make it easy to add an image description for users who may be using screen readers or who may have trouble viewing an image.
- Use camel case for multiple word hashtags: You should capitalize the first letter of each word. For example #SpringfieldCollege is optimized over #springfieldcollege.
- Be aware of what an emoji means: Once again, some users will be using screen readers which will interpret the emoji image with a name. Learn more about what each emoji means at https://emojipedia.org. Because the screen reader will read out the meaning, it is best if emojis are used at either the very beginning of the very end of a sentence in order to avoid confusion.
