As a faculty, organizational unit or institute, you are permitted to set up your own social media channel. In doing so, you must adhere to the following guidelines.
Determine a strategy
As with other means of communication, social media is a means and not an end in itself. Before you use a social media platform, ask yourself the following questions:
- Who do I want to reach?
- What is my message?
- Is your target group already reached via another social media channel?
- Does your target group need your information on that social channel?
Then check to see whether your own social media channel would consequently offer a solution. In this case, think about the following questions:
- Which content will I post?
- How often will I post content?
- How can I ensure that this content will inspire the necessary interaction?
- Who will answer possible questions?
- How will I deal with negative comments?
- Do I have time every day to maintain the social media channel?
Creating an account
If you wish to create a social media account, choose the channel that is best suited to your target audience and your objectives. Need advice? Please contact communicatie [at] ru.nl.
Avatar
Create your own Radboud Avatar for the social media channel of your department, service or course in your corporate identity. Request the template via communicatie [at] ru.nl.
Cover photo
You may use royalty-free images from Radboud University’s image archive for your cover photo.
Managing your account
A social media account needs to be managed. For this purpose, you will need to ensure that:
- You have multiple administrators who are able to replace each other if someone is either sick or on holidays.
- You remove administrators who are no longer allowed access, for example because their employment has ended. Also change the password for the social channel after that.
- The login details for the account are securely stored in a place that can only be accessed by some members of staff.
- You do not use a private email address to create a social channel, but a Radboud email address.
- In the event that you lose your password, you have a recovery address that is a general Radboud University email address that can be accessed by several people, for example fellow staff members from your department. This also allows the account to be deleted at a later time when it can no longer be used or managed.
Monitoring and webcare
Keep track of what is happening among your followers and around your organization on the social channel (monitoring) and respond actively to possible questions or complaints (webcare). For this purpose you can use a monitoring tool such as Spotler. For questions about monitoring or webcare, please contact communicatie [at] ru.nl.
Public access and privacy
When you are in charge of a channel of communication that speaks for the university, you have a responsibility. This means that you will need to ensure that:
- The information is reliable and correct.
- You do not share any personal opinions through a corporate social media account.
- You do not share any privacy-sensitive information. If you do need to share such information, make sure that you do so through a direct message that is only visible to the sender and receiver.
Deleting a channel
Is the social media channel no longer actively managed or is the channel no longer needed? Then delete the social channel. Use the login or recovery email address for this.