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Social Media Guidelines

The Office of College Communications manages SUNY Potsdam’s main institutional social media accounts, including the College’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube accounts. In addition, the office moderates official SUNY Potsdam closed student class groups. It also consults with other offices on maintaining the official accounts for athletics, alumni and other areas.

Main SUNY Potsdam Social Media Accounts

Official hashtags

  • #SUNYPotsdam
  • #PotsdamProud
  • #PotsdamBears
  • #SUNYPotsdamGrad
  • #SUNYPotsdamAlum

SUNY Potsdam prides itself on being a welcoming, creative and diverse community. This ethos extends to our use of social media as well. The following guidelines are recommended for pages, groups and accounts managed by College departments, athletic teams and student groups. In our commitment to First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, please remember that SUNY Potsdam does not regulate personal social media account usage.

Official Profile Icons

The icons below are to be used only on the main College social media accounts managed by College Communications. It is recommended that academic departments use a photo of a high impact learning showcasing their discipline for their social media profile.

 

Autumn Profile Icon Winter Profile Icon Spring Profile Icon Summer Profile Icon

Social Media Naming/Image Guidelines

When creating an official Facebook page for a department, team or club associated with the College, please make sure that you begin the title of your page with “SUNY Potsdam,” followed by the name of your group. This makes it easier for users to find your page and helps to avoid confusion. For Twitter and Instagram accounts, please include “SUNY Potsdam” in the account description.

Following SUNY Potsdam’s brand and imaging policies, do not modify existing College logos for use as a social media icon. Additionally, do not use copyrighted SUNY Potsdam photography without permission. 

Recommendations for Social Media

  • Have a strategy: Before starting an account for your department, office, team, club or organization, ask yourself how you can use social media to advance your mission and goals. What kind of content do you want to share, and how often? Do you really need to be on every platform, or is one better than another? Is there another existing account or platform that you could partner with or utilize differently?
  • Designate managers: Who will manage your accounts day-to-day, and who will take over in case of graduation, employment changes, etc.? Choose only trusted, responsible members of your team to serve as the main managers for the account. If possible, create a shared email, username and secure password to manage the account, so that when people move on, others can more easily take over. This will help avoid the development of additional “ghost” accounts that are not updated and can be confusing to users searching for your group.
  • Think before you post: Be cautious and make sure that you are logged in to the correct account before posting. Negative, offensive or embarrassing posts can put the entire institution into a bad light and reflect poorly on you and on your group for years to come. Posts and comments can be saved and shared through screenshots. Even if you delete a post, it could still be picked up by search engines and archival systems for years to come. So be very careful about what you put out into the world!
  • Strive for unique content: Make sure that your posts are unique to your area and reflect the mission and goals of your department, team or group. Differentiate your account from other College accounts by posting original content relevant to your area whenever possible.
  • Proofread and doublecheck posts: Always take time to re-read your message before posting, to check for typos and inaccuracies. Check the sources of news stories before sharing, and cite/link to the original whenever possible. Verify details before posting. If you find a mistake later, correct it as quickly as you can.
  • Engage: You are encouraged to engage with your followers by responding to comments and questions in a timely, respectful and authentic manner.
  • Share relevant posts: If you would like to share content from another account affiliated with SUNY Potsdam, please share or retweet it directly, so that people can see the original post and can like or follow those pages as well. This saves you time and helps people to discover the great social media accounts affiliated with the College.
  • Respect confidentiality & copyright: Never post confidential information about students, alumni or employees. If in doubt, contact the Office of College Communications with your questions. In general, basic student directory information, which includes their name, major, hometown, sport and academic awards, may be released, but it is best to get their permission if in doubt. For information about the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, go online. It is also important to respect copyright and trademark protections, especially with the use of brand marks and photography. You cannot just copy photos from the web without permission and/or attribution. To request permission to use official copyrighted SUNY Potsdam photography, contact the Office of College Communications.
  • Be cautious with negative/concerning comments: If you encounter negative or inaccurate comments on your page or elsewhere, be cautious before responding. Usually, it is best to just monitor the situation. Sometimes, it is appropriate to provide an answer to a question, or direct a commenter to the best office on campus to respond to their concern. Occasionally, it may be best to politely provide factual information in response to audience confusion or misinformation. We do not recommend deleting comments unless they are inappropriate, obscene, threatening, harassing, spam, commercial in nature, or a violation of privacy and/or copyright or trademark law. If you see a comment or post that contains concerning content that may be relat-ed to a student or employee’s safety or security, or is criminal in nature (harassment, threats, etc.), please take a screenshot and contact University Police at (315) 267-2222. During a campuswide emergency situation, we ask that all social media accounts associated with the College go “silent,” and only share posts relevant to public safety from official SUNY Potsdam accounts. This helps to ensure that important emergency messages reach our audiences as quickly as possible.

Questions?

When in doubt, ask! Contact the Office of College Communications at communications@potsdam.edu.