Social Media Guidelines

Policies and best practices

The Marketing Team oversees all use of social media for the MIT Libraries. Social media is an important component of the integrated marketing effort that's coordinated centrally by the Marketing Team to support our overall communications strategy. When we post to social media outlets on behalf of the MIT Libraries, our postings represent the Libraries’ brand/identity, as well as the larger MIT brand. With this in mind, we follow MIT's social media guides for MIT communicators.

We also use the following best practices in our social media posts and interactions. We strive to:

 Be friendly and approachable

• • Use a tone that is upbeat, and personable.
  • Use the first person plural “We” when taking about the Libraries (i.e. “We’re excited about this new service…”)
  • Avoid using library jargon. Use Libraries shortcut URLs where applicable: libraries.mit.edu/shortcuts
    

Be entertaining and informative

• • Post content that is useful to our MIT community and beyond.
  • Use the 80/20 rule—entertain and inform 80% of the time, promote ourselves 20%.
  • When sharing outside content, make a library or MIT connection to give it context.

Be a good neighbor

• • Follow, re-tweet, and like posts by fellow MIT departments (especially posts with a library, research, or literary connection).
  • Be an active participant in the MIT community—stay aware of current MIT events and initiatives, and find ways to join the conversation.
  • Be an active participant in the greater academic library community.
  • Give credit to ideas and content from others.

Be helpful, responsive, and transparent

• • Respond promptly and thoughtfully to any questions (that are not spam).
  • If we get questions that aren’t quickly answerable say, “thanks for your question, we’ll check on it and get right back to you…” and check with the Ask Us team.
  • If we get negative comments–address legitimate criticisms by acknowledging and addressing in a positive way. Don’t engage if the comment is harsh or threatening.

Be timely

• • Keep an eye on our home feeds to stay current with posts, mentions, and retweets
  • Space tweets and posts throughout the day (aim for 3 tweets a day/ 1-2 Facebook posts)
  • Experiment with posting at different times of day, other than during 9-5 on weekdays
  • Cover weekends and holidays with at least 1 scheduled tweet/post a day.
  • Post events a week or so before the event, and remind again on the day-of.
  • Post breaking news, such campus weather closings, or other alerts ASAP.

Be visually engaging

• • Use photos as much as possible (especially on Facebook), but be mindful of copyright
  • Use our own image collections, and Archives images
  • Take informal smart phone pics and video at library locations, share “behind the scenes” shots 

Be sensitive, yet neutral

• • Be mindful of the diversity of our audience, and sensitive to a wide-range of views
  • Make sure our language or tone does not offend anyone
  • Steer clear of posting about controversial topics in the news, and political views

MIT's guidelines: http://web.mit.edu/cps/social-media-guidelines.html

How to contribute: send your ideas!

To prevent having splintered social media outlets across the MIT Libraries, profiles representing the Libraries in an official/professional capacity are centralized through the Marketing Team. The Team encourages creative input from all Libraries’ departments and staff. If you'd like to have something posted through any of the social media platforms listed below, fill out the Marketing Support Request form and the Marketing Team will help you to communicate your message through appropriate mediums.

Contacts

The Libraries Communications Officer oversees all use of marketing and communications in the MIT Libraries.

Social media profiles at MIT Libraries

See our current MIT Libraries' social media profiles: