Social Media Guidelines & Policy

On this page:
Purpose
Passwords and Security
Emergency Plan
In Case of Campus Emergency
Submitting Content for Posting on Covenant’s Social Media Accounts
Social Media Guidebook: Tips and Best Practices
All About Instagram

Purpose
The social media accounts for Covenant College serve as a space to engage with prospective and current students, alumni, faculty, staff, and the Covenant community. In order to do this effectively, we support the need for a strategic presence on social media. 

Covenant College has developed a social media policy and application process to ensure that any and all accounts and online interactions represent Covenant College’s best interests. 

Just as new social media accounts provide new opportunities for the College, there are added risks associated with creating an account that is not well-maintained. We hope that these guidelines will help mitigate those risks and ultimately serve to put Covenant’s best foot forward.

Passwords and Security

• Every account should have more than one full-time employee with administrative access to the account. These administrators should be employed by Covenant College and belong to the group/department for which the account represents.
• Passwords/general account access should not be shared except with other staff/faculty or thoroughly vetted work study students.
• Passwords should be changed on a regular basis, especially when someone leaves the department or no longer needs access to the account.
• A covenant.edu email address should be used when creating and connecting to a social platform.
• If a student needs access to an account, the student should be thoroughly vetted by his/her account administrator before being granted access. If needed for a short period of time, a department may consider allowing an administrator to log the student in and out of the account for a period of time.
• Log-in information for each unit account, plus names and contact information (email and cell phone number) for a primary and secondary account administrator, should be provided to the university’s Marketing and Communications office for use in an emergency.

Emergency Plan (Mistakes, hacked accounts, etc.)

• If MarComm sees something that needs to be addressed, they will first contact the account’s listed administrators. If there is not a quick response, MarComm may step in to handle the situation.
• If you notice an errant post, delete it as soon as possible. Public apologies are not usually needed in this case and may lead to more harm than good.
• If an account administrator notices malicious content (whether from a hacker or otherwise), he/she should contact the Director of Marketing and Communications for guidance.

In Case of Campus Emergency (natural disasters, criminal activity, etc.)
Improper information during an emergency may directly conflict with law enforcement and/or endanger lives. Therefore, only accounts that have worked with the Emergency Management team in advance and come to an agreement regarding their specific facility should attempt to offer tips or information about what’s happening. Otherwise, best practices are to cease any pre scheduled or new content until it is determined the crisis has passed.

Support

• The MarComm team is here to support you as you work to showcase all that the college has to offer. Feel free to schedule a meeting with the Director of Marketing and Communications and/or the Social Media Content Specialist for help brainstorming content ideas, creating a content plan, or anything else related to your social media presence.
• MarComm will annually review the list of accounts and administrators to ensure that accounts are active, log-in information is up to date, and that the list of administrators are still correct.
• MarComm will host an annual meeting on social media best practices for account owners and moderators across campus.

Submitting Content to be Considered for Posting on Covenant College’s Social Media Accounts
You may decide that creating an entire account is not practical or necessary for you at this time, but you might have an occasional piece of content you would like to share. If you think the audience of the Covenant College accounts would be suited for your needs, you may submit a request form of the content you would like to highlight. Be sure to fill out the form thoroughly and provide the most accurate information possible so our team can make a well-informed decision about where/if this content should be shared. Keep in mind that the MarComm office typically builds social calendars on a monthly basis, but some exceptions may be made up to one week prior to the desired posting date.

Social Media Content Request Form

Social Media Guidebook: Tips and Best Practices

Things to consider before starting an account:

1. Who is the target audience of this account?
   • Who are you trying to reach? Example audiences may include prospective students, current students, parents, alumni, academics in your field, etc. You may have multiple audiences, but narrowing in on a main target audience will help guide the content you share.
2. What is the purpose of this account?
   • What can your followers expect to see from you? For example, will you focus on reminding current students of department events or showing prospective students what life is like as a Covenant Scot in your department? Just like your target audience, knowing your purpose will guide you in your content creation and increase your likeliness of gaining followers. If your followers don’t know what to expect from your account, they won’t stay your followers for very long.
3. Have I received permission to start this account?
   • Once you have your purpose in mind, be sure to talk to your department chair, the VP of Academic Affairs, and the Marketing Department to be sure that you are approved to create an account.
4. What results would make this worth the work? What goals do I need to set to make this happen?
5. Where is the content coming from? Who will manage and reply to comments and messages? What kind of content will need to be created on a regular basis (photos, videos, graphics, etc)?
6. Who will be the primary administrator and manager of the account?
7. How do I plan to build an audience?
8. How will negative comments be handled? If the account were to be hacked, what is the recovery plan?
9. Who will own this account if/when the current owners leave Covenant?

All About Instagram
Instagram is a social media platform created to share video and photo content across mobile devices. Within the app you can capture, create, edit, and publish visual content to anyone else on the platform (if you’re a public account). 

Types of content:

• Single Image
• Carousel (up to 10 photos that users swipe through)
• Reel (video)
• Live (Livestream)
• Stories (vertical posts that only appear for 24 hours, unless you decide to highlight them on your page)

Instagram’s algorithm is not chronologically based, so there is no guarantee that your followers will see your post in their feed on the day that you post it, or even at all. Therefore, it is important not to rely on Instagram as your only form of communication for time-sensitive information. Engagement is important to getting the most people to see your content.

There are four main ways another user can engage with your content:

• Likes: Represented by a heart, users can “like” posts that they enjoy.
• Comments: Users can respond to your posts by commenting their thoughts and reactions.
• Shares: If a user thinks that your post is worth showing off, they can share your content to their story within the app or through external communication platforms (such as text or email).
• Saves: If a user really likes your content and wants to come back to it later, they can choose to save your post to their personal collection.

Each type of engagement has a different impact on how Instagram will show your content to others. For example, shares and saves are weighted more than likes. But overall, the more engagement your post receives, the more likely Instagram is to show it to your followers. Keep this in mind when creating content.