Social Media Contacts and Guidelines

Social media profiles at MIT Libraries

The Marketing and Communications Officer oversees all use of social media for the MIT Libraries.

Policies and best practices

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

How to contribute: send your ideas!

The social media 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, email the team at socialmedia-lib@mit.edu. Submitting an idea does not guarantee it will be shared.

If you have already submitted a marketing request form to promote an event or service and checked the "social media posts" box, please do not submit an additional request via email to the social media team. 

We encourage submissions such as:

• Unique photos of library spaces
• Suggestions for an ongoing series (e.g. #BookFaceFriday on Instagram) 
• Interesting, little-known facts about MIT history or Libraries collections, especially as they relate to current events, milestones, or anniversaries
• Positive feedback from a library user (quoted with their permission)