Social Media Guidelines

The goal of UVA-affiliated social media is to increase our collective reach and cultivate our audiences through authentic, consistently branded and emotionally compelling content. While this may look different for each school, office, institute, student club and department, the overarching goal should stay the same. We recommend answering these tried-and-true questions to help build your social media strategy.

How will your content:

• Build awareness and elevate our presence in Virginia and the nation?
• Amplify our messages through storytelling while promoting positive sentiment?
• Generate engagement through authentic, emotionally compelling and entertaining content?
• Convey timely and relevant information to audiences?
• Develop an extension of the marketing audience narratives to each platform in a socially relevant way?
• Align with the University’s 2030 Strategic Goals?

Once you have laid out your strategy, ensure you have thought through these social media components to allow the strategy to drive your content:

1. Social brand presence: Consistently maintain all social profiles – they are an extension of the University’s brand and personality. This includes the profile icons, profile header images, highlight icons and templates for stories and the profile statement.
2. Platform approach: Develop an approach that is specific to all the platforms you are using (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram).
3. Social channel expansion: Develop an ongoing growth strategy for which channels you want to be represented on.
4. Content: Proactively plan your content themes as far ahead of time as possible. Things like Final Exercises happen every year at the same time.
5. Cadence and volume: Evaluate the rhythm of posts based on quality of the content created for each platform.
6. Working together to increase reach: Support each other across the University. Follow each other, share each other’s content and use sponsored posts to promote campaigns.
7. Measurement: Report monthly metrics to inform content, creative and strategy.

We encourage open discussion about the topics we post, but we do reserve the right to moderate discussion on University of Virginia social media accounts and to remove posts that contain:

• Profane or obscene content;
• Off-topic content;
• Content that promotes, fosters or perpetuates discrimination against protected classes;
• Sexual harassment content;
• Conduct or encouragement of illegal activity;
• Spam or comments that include links to external online sites;
• Solicitations of commerce or advertisements including promotion or endorsement;
• Promotions of particular services, products or political candidates or organizations;
• Content that violates the terms of use or community guidelines of the social media platform; or
• Information that may tend to compromise the safety or security of the public or public systems.

Violators may have their comments removed from the University’s social media platforms. Continued or egregious violations of this policy may prompt the University to further restrict an individual’s commenting on University social media platforms. In certain situations, the poster, as well as the content, may be reported to authorities, depending on the nature of the content.

Posts that refer to specific individuals or offices within the UVA community as part of the complaint, concern, or compliment will be handled on a case-by-case basis. Depending on the circumstances, at the discretion of page administrators, the post or comment may be removed.

Users who have concerns about specific conduct can contact socialmedia@virginia.edu to report them.

The University of Virginia is not responsible for the content posted by participants on any of its pages, nor does its existence constitute endorsement of the content by the University.

Participants understand that they are ultimately responsible for the content they post, and as such, understand legal issues may arise from the content they post, and that the University of Virginia is not responsible for those outcomes.

If UVA is involved in a crisis or other issue that is surfacing on social media or dominating social conversation, remember that addressing it via social media posts from any UVA-affiliated account could be interpreted as issuing a statement on behalf of the University. Likewise, if a national emergency or crisis unrelated to UVA dominates social conversation, addressing it via social media posts from a UVA-affiliated account carries the weight of a University statement.

Official University statements are coordinated with University leadership and can be found on the primary UVA social media accounts.

During a crisis or other issue at UVA or beyond, make sure to consider the appropriateness of your scheduled posts on UVA-affiliated social media. You want to avoid unintentionally appearing tone-deaf or unaware of current events.

If one of your social media accounts is involved in an incident or issue that could have negative implications for UVA’s reputation, please contact Brian Coy, associate vice president for communications and chief communications officer, at btc6r@virginia.edu, or Bethanie Glover, ffu4bm@virginia.edu. Please note that responses may be delayed during times of crisis for the University.

If you have any doubts or questions about whether a posting is appropriate or in the best interests of the University, err on the side of checking with Brian and Bethanie before you post.