TSTC Visual Standard Guide 2020

COMMUNICATIONS / SOCIAL MEDIA
Social Media
Guidelines
Applications that allow you to interact with others
online such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and
others require cautious consideration to assess the
implications of using and accepting the use of these
outlets. TSTC will strive to stay abreast of best practices
in the social media field and update guidelines as
necessary.
• Social media includes social networking sites such
as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn; Twitter; blog
accounts (WordPress, etc.); video-sharing sites
(YouTube, etc.), and photo-sharing sites (Flickr, etc.).
• Familiarize yourself with TSTC social media guidelines
and follow them in any social media activities in
which you may be posting as a representative of TSTC,
and not as yourself. Departments considering creating
a social media site should consider the following
questions:
• What are the goals of creating such a site?
• Who will be the intended audience(s) for this site?
• What messages do we want to share on this site?
• Who will write the messages for the site?
• Who will update the site?
• How often do you plan to post content to the site?
• No TSTC Department or Program is allowed to
create their own social media site. All pages/groups
connected to TSTC must be approved and managed
by the Dept. of Communications.
• The TSTC site (tstc.edu) remains the official external
communication vehicle for the college, and keeping
the college website timely and up to date should be
the priority. Departments should consider posting
announcements on both their respective TSTC Portal
and social media sites to reach a broader audience.
• Contact the Executive Director of Communications,
Kristina Campos-Davis, via email at kristina.campos@
tstc.edu to register or to create a social media account
for a department within TSTC. Dr. Campos-Davis will
use a dedicated administrative account to create
the social media site so that the account does not
belong to any one individual at TSTC. (Support
departments are encouraged to post their messages
on the main campus social media site.) We will then
make individuals in your area editors of the site and
a communication specialist will be assigned as an
administrator.
a. This allows us to remove individual administrators
from the site when they leave the college.
b. This also allows us to promote all the social
networking resources at TSTC in one place.
c. The only exception to this is YouTube. TSTC already
has an established YouTube site, and all videos
should be posted there.
• TSTC’s Executive Director of Communications
will review sites periodically to be certain these
guidelines are being followed and that sites remain
active. If a social media site becomes inactive for
a continuous three months or does not follow
guidelines established by TSTC, the college will ask
that the site in question be discontinued.
• Participating in social media is very timeconsuming.
To do it well, page editors should be
checking the page at least daily, if not more often, to
respond to questions and posts. Editors should also
be posting often to encourage participation and to
stay relevant to users. If faculty members are not able
to dedicate time to this endeavor, then they should
not start a social media presence for their respective
unit.
• Furthermore, social media is a very public
activity. Editors posting on these pages do so as
communicators representing TSTC and must abide
by the college social media guidelines. If employees
wish to post items that do not meet with these
guidelines, they can participate in social media using
their own personal account, posting on Texas State
Technical College pages, as well as other
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TSTC | BRAND IDENTITY