OM 7.24.0 Clarkson Social media Policy

Introduction

As a leader in technological education and sustainable economic development through teaching, scholarship, research and innovation, Clarkson is committed to engaging in conversation relevant to these topics. Social media expands our ability to have conversations about Clarkson and its role in the world.

This social media handbook functions as a guide for anyone operating a social media account affiliated with Clarkson University. The material in this handbook outlines acceptable use of social media and offers best practices for University accounts. This policy DOES NOT pertain to personal accounts created by Clarkson employees or students, although some of this information may be useful for that pursuit.

Keep in mind that running a social media account means you are representing Clarkson in a public space. In order to most effectively operate a ACDoc2025-02
social media account in a positive manner for the University, following these policies and practices will be key.

General Acknowledgements

This policy applies to all social media platforms, including, but not limited to Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, blogs, and other media yet to be developed in a dynamic communications field. It is meant to be a living document that will transform as technologies change.

This policy is intended for all students, faculty, and staff who manage or contribute to official Clarkson University social media channels, which are defined as channels that speak on behalf of the University and have some oversight by university staff.
These include, but are not limited to, channels for schools, academic departments, and offices at Clarkson.

This policy DOES NOT apply to student organizations. Organizations should follow the guidance of their governing bodies and, when necessary, the direction of Student Affairs. Those student organizations that use the University’s logo must not manipulate it in any way. In addition, the university reserves the right to monitor and restrict how its logo and name are used.

Section I - New Social Media Accounts

A. Marketing and External Relations (MER) collaborates to review and approve the establishment of new University social media accounts. MER also documents the University's social media accounts and provides training and support to account administrators.
B. New social media accounts must use a generic or vanity email address to create a new account. The new account must have no fewer than two full-time employees as admins and the account must adhere to all policies outlined here.
C. Before creating any official social media account at Clarkson University, you must fill out and submit the Social Media Account Request form. If applicable, the communications lead in your department and social media lead from MER will meet with you to discuss communications strategies specific to your school or department.
D. Once you have completed the Social Media Account Request form, please contact MER to discuss any ideas or concerns. The MER team reserves the right to deny any requests for new social media accounts.

Section II - Crisis Communication

A. Please pause any scheduled or planned posts during a crisis.
B. In the event of an emergency on campus, such as inclement weather or a campus crisis, MER will be in close communication with Campus Safety and any divisions or departments directly affected. Any public crisis management messaging will originate with a Clarkson Alert shared directly to the University’s Facebook and X accounts at the same time as an alert goes out to campus phones, emails, and text messages.

Section III - Social Media Management

A. Departments, programs or units of the University that would like to create or maintain a social media account that represents the department, program or unit, that link from Clarkson.edu and/or that appear in the University’s published materials must apply for recognition from the Marketing & External Relations office. Together they will discuss the purpose of the account and how they plan to use and maintain it. After receiving approval from the Marketing & External Relations office, the user may create the new account subject to the terms of this policy and any requirements imposed as a condition of approval. The University reserves the right to revoke or limit approval at any time in its sole discretion.
B. Account administrators are responsible for reviewing the social media policy, strategy and brand guidelines with MER. The MER team will maintain an updated list of University social media accounts.
C. Other than "official" social media pages maintained by the Marketing & External Relations office, no department, program or unit should consider its social media site as representing, or allow its social media site to be constructed and/or operated in a manner that states or implies that it represents, the University as a whole.
D. Passwords should be changed immediately when an individual with access to your account leaves the department or organization. All passwords should be stored securely in a password management tool, with access granted to or removed from individuals as necessary. All
password changes must be reported to MER so they may update their records. E. All relevant University social media account passwords must remain on file with MER, and/or a MER team member must be listed as a full administrator on the account, depending on the platform.
F. Employees identified as administrators of accounts are responsible for managing and monitoring content, including without limitation ensuring that postings are consistent with other Clarkson published materials on the same topic. They are responsible for removal of any content that violates applicable federal, state or municipal laws, rules or regulations; University policies, procedures, rules or regulations; or the terms of use for the site on which the account is maintained. The University reserves the right to require the alteration or removal of content that it deems to be contrary to (a) any applicable federal, state or municipal law, rule or regulation, (b) any applicable University policy, procedure, rule or regulation, and/or (c) the best interests of the University.
G. The University has adopted a variety of policies, procedures, rules and regulations that specify the manner in which concerns or complaints regarding certain issues are to be reported (e.g., campus safety and security issues, allegations of discrimination, harassment and/or other human resources concerns, allegations of research improprieties, conflicts of interest, environmental health and safety issues, etc.). A University, departmental, program or unit social media site and/or page approved pursuant to this policy is not responsible for receiving and acting on such concerns and/or complaints, and may not state or imply that it is so authorized, unless expressly designated as having such responsibilities. Employees should understand that the posting of such concerns and/or complaints on approved sites or pages does not ensure that they will be received and acted upon by appropriate University personnel, and the University cannot guarantee that posted concerns and/or complaints will be addressed in a timely manner, if at all. Therefore, employees desiring to report such concerns and complaints should instead use the officially designated resources and processes identified in the relevant Clarkson policies, procedures, rules and regulations.
H. The words “Clarkson University” and our logos, trademarks and service marks (collectively, the “Clarkson Marks”) are the property of Clarkson
University. If you plan to use any Clarkson Marks in a social media account, the logos must first be submitted to the Director of News & Digital Content Services in the Marketing & External Relations office for approval of the proposed use. The Clarkson Marks may only be used on social media officially recognized by Clarkson pursuant to this policy. The Clarkson University "seal" is reserved for special honors and to signify corporate agreements and should not be used online in social media. I. HIPAA/FERPA Violation: Social media account managers should take steps in advance to prevent the exposure of confidential medical or student information. Confidential information should never be posted online.
J. Photos should be inspected closely before publication to make sure no confidential, personal information, such as Social Security numbers, addresses, or academic records, can be seen. Never publish a name or photo without that individual’s permission.

Section IV - Transparency

A. To both protect the University name and build trust with users, social media such as blogs, Facebook pages, X feeds, etc. that are established on behalf of Clarkson entities should be explicit regarding the nature of the relationship of such media to Clarkson.
B. Similarly, in keeping with Clarkson’s non-profit status, social media should not be used for any private business or financial transactions including revenue from advertising, nor should any staff with administrative responsibilities realize any personal monetary profit from Clarkson-related social media. Social media may be used for fundraising as long as a transaction does not occur on the social media platform itself.
C. Personal opinions should not be expressed through official social media accounts.
D. Political statements, whether in text or visual form, should not be made on official accounts. As a tax-exempt organization, the University is prohibited from participating in a political campaign on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate and is subject to other requirements.

Section V - Copyright

A. Clarkson official accounts must adhere to Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials when posting intellectual property, including photos and videos, online.
B. Materials posted online should be your property, in the public domain, have a Creative Commons license, or fall under fair use. For all other instances, you should seek permission from the copyright holder.
C. Photos from Clarkson’s photo archives should only be posted with permission.
D. Where possible, best practice is to include credit/attribution.
E. On Facebook and YouTube/Vimeo, Clarkson asks that you include a credit.
F. Please contact MER with any questions on Fair Use and tips for locating royalty-free music, and images and photographs that permit re-use with Creative Commons licenses.
G. When using photographs or graphics, repurposing content or sharing information, be mindful of copyright and Fair Use laws. Images cannot be “taken” off the Internet without explicit permission from the owner. Individuals must secure permission when including copyrighted or trademarked material and include a permission statement or disclaimer, as required by the owner.
H. For more information, visit the U.S. Copyright Office at copyright.gov.
I. The University’s logos also are trademarked and can be used only by authorized social media accounts. Clarkson has created a Brand Toolkit which includes approved University logos and icons. Click here to access the toolkit.

Section VI - Inactive Accounts

A. Social media channels at Clarkson University must be continually updated and monitored. An abundance of inactive accounts reflects poorly on the communications strategy of the entire University. Accounts that have been inactive for more than two months are subject to deactivation or deletion. Deactivation and deletion will be carried out by contacting and working with the account’s administrator or the highest ranking officer of the department.
B. Official University social media accounts are expected to post regularly (minimum of 3 posts per week for Facebook and Instagram and 5 posts per week on Twitter during the school year). Official University social
media accounts that are inactive for 60 days or more will be removed from the University’s social media page.

Section VII - Accessibility

Clarkson University is committed to ensuring effective access to communications materials for all members of the University community, including individuals with disabilities.

Visually impaired individuals and those with other disabilities may confront significant barriers when accessing certain information through social media. Accordingly, individuals who maintain social media on behalf of the University should take steps to reduce barriers to access for individuals with disabilities.

For example, enabling screen reader compatibility, captioning, and descriptive tags on images can help reduce barriers to accessing information for individuals with disabilities. Most major social media platforms, including Facebook, YouTube and X, provide access solutions for individuals with disabilities, including application programming interfaces (API) that enable the creation of applications that enhance accessibility of content.

It is important to keep in mind that APIs do not eliminate or resolve all accessibility challenges. For additional and more current resources on improving access to Clarkson-related social media and Clarkson websites for individuals with disabilities, please contact the MER team.

University social media accounts must be accessible to users with disabilities, in compliance with federal and state law and regulations. See below for information on making your accounts accessible.

A. Alternative Text

Most accessibility issues on social media arise from embedded images, which may not be meaningful to the visually impaired. Adding alt text to images can resolve most of these issues.
Alt text describes the content of images, graphs and charts in a way that makes sense to users employing assistive technology such as screen readers.

Alt text should answer the question: What is the content conveyed by the image?

Tip: When posting to social media, always consider how the post would appear without the embedded image. Is the user receiving the same information that they would if the image were visible?

Note: Purely decorative images, which don’t add information to the content of a post, need not be described in alt tags. However, such images should be provided with null (empty) alt text (alt="") so that they can be ignored by assistive technologies, such as screen readers.

B. Accessibility for X

When you Tweet photos using the X app for iOS or Android, or on twitter.com, you should compose a description of the images so the content is accessible to more people, including those who are blind or low-vision.

Good image descriptions are concise and descriptive, helping people understand what’s happening in an image and the reason for including the image. If posting a picture of a flier or document, the alt text should consist of the entire text contained in the image. See X's tutorial on writing great image descriptions.

To add image descriptions on X:

Click on the Tweet compose button, or press the “n” key to use the keyboard shortcut.

Attach your photo(s). Note: For detailed instructions about adding photos to your Tweets, read this article.
To insert descriptive text, click "Add description."

Type your description of the image (the limit is 1000 characters) and select Save. An ALT badge will appear in the corner of the image. To edit the description, re-open the "Add description" dialog prior to posting the Tweet.

You can add a description to each image in a Tweet. When someone selects the ALT badge, the image description appears on screen. Note: Image descriptions cannot be added to videos.

See the full procedure from X.

C. Accessibility for Facebook

Facebook adds machine-generated alt text automatically. However, the machine-generated text may not be sufficiently accurate, and automated alt-text does not recognize text contained within images. Therefore it is recommended that you add descriptive text along with pictures that you post to Facebook. Ideally, the descriptive text you write will both explain and enhance the meaning of the picture.

To see and edit alt text for a photo before you post it:

Click Photo/Video at the top of your News Feed.

Select the photo you want to add.

Hover over the photo and click Edit.

The automatically generated text will be shown on the left side of your photo. Click Override generated alt text to edit it.

Write your alt text in the box. To change back to the automatically generated text, click Clear.

To save your alt text, click Save in the bottom left.

To change the alt text of a photo after you've posted it:

Click the photo to open it.

Click in the top right and select Change Alt Text.

Click Override generated alt text or change the alt text in the text box. You can also click Clear to change your edited alt text back to the automatically generated text.

Click Save.

D. Accessibility for YouTube

In order to be accessible, YouTube videos must include captions that reflect all audio information, including sound effects or music, and identify speakers. YouTube will generate captions for most videos subsequent to upload, but machine-generated captions may be inaccurate and will probably require editing.

If the video includes visual information that is needed to understand what the video is communicating (e.g., athlete demonstrates how to lift weights safely) it is necessary to include an audible description of that information on the video soundtrack. Creating and cross-linking an audio-described alternative version of the original video is an acceptable solution. The audio-described version should be posted at the same time as the original version.

Examples:
Riding the Bus Safely (original)
Riding the Bus Safely (audio-described version)

E. Accessibility for Instagram

Automatic alt text uses object recognition technology to provide a visual description of photos for people with visual impairments. You can replace this text to provide a better description of a photo. Keep in mind that this description will only be read if someone is using a screen reader to access Instagram.

To see and edit alt text for a photo before you post it on Instagram:

Start by taking a photo or uploading an existing photo to Instagram.

Choose a filter and edit the image, then tap Next.

Tap Advanced Settings at the bottom of the screen.

Tap Write Alt Text.

Write your alt text in the box and tap Done (iOS) or Save (Android)

To change the alt text of a photo after you've already posted it on Instagram:

Go to the photo and tap (iOS) or (Android).

Tap Edit.

Tap Edit Alt Text in the bottom right.

Write the alt text in the box and tap Done (iOS) or (Android).

Section VIII - Relevant University Policies and Procedures

Social media usage is governed by the same policies that govern all other electronic communications. Read the following policies before using any social media.

Information Technology Policies
Human Resource Policies
Faculty Definitions and Policies

Section IX - Expectations/Tips

Follow these guidelines for a successful social media presence and to maintain unity with the Clarkson brand.

A. Have a Strategy

Before getting involved with social media, consider your objectives and your target audience. Consider whether a social medium is the right conduit to meet these goals. Finally, develop a strategy for how you will use your chosen medium. If you’d like assistance in building a strategy, contact your departmental marketing liaison.

B. Research

Each medium carries its own set of customs and etiquettes and a unique lexicon. Take time to study the channel you’ll be working with prior to posting content to avoid being considered inauthentic and uneducated by the online community. Keep in mind that you are a University representative and will be perceived as such.

C. Be Involved

Most social media require significant supervision and time commitments. Be prompt in responding to questions and feedback, and do your best to keep the flow of information and conversation continuously active.

D. Be Transparent

Make sure it is clear to your community who you are and what your role is at the University. Authenticity is a fundamental component of any social media environment.

Make sure the content you post is appropriate for your audience and what you want to achieve. Be factual, provide sources or links for claims you make, fix errors quickly, and do not spam.

You must keep your business/professional use of social media completely separate from your personal use. Use of University resources (time, equipment, networks) for personal purposes violates both State law and University policy. Accordingly, your use of social media as a University representative may not link to or reference content in your personal profile/account.

E. Be Respectful

Be tolerant of others’ opinions, avoid antagonizing anyone, and take the high road when provoked. Remember, you are a member of the Clarkson community, and so represent not only your department but also the University itself.

Part of what makes social media such a powerful tool is its ability to produce a pleasant environment for open dialogue. Therefore censoring dialogue is not common. However, circumstances will arise when, as a forum host, you must initiate action to remove user-generated content. At the outset, articulate a clear behavioral policy for your audience. Consider how your failure to remove discriminatory or defamatory content would be perceived by the poster, your forum audience and the general public.

Do not overreact to the appearance of negative content, but do address it. Keep in mind that removing a negative post may put an idea out of sight, but discussing and deconstructing it has the power to change minds.

F. Be Accessible

Clarkson University is committed to providing students, faculty, staff and visitors with access to online resources. All authorized Clarkson social media sites must make certain that all resources are available in a format accessible to users with disabilities.
Varying accessibility options are available on social media platforms. University accounts must ensure that social posts are accessible to the greatest extent possible. The following guidelines should be used when posting.

G. Using Photos

Photographs posted on social media sites easily can be appropriated by visitors. Posting pictures of people that have already been published by one of the main university platforms is fine. However, when posting images of groups smaller than three, each member of the group should be asked for permission if the image can easily be identified.

H. Have a Plan

Departments should consider their messages, audiences and goals, as well as a strategy for keeping information on social media sites up-to-date. The MER team can assist and advise you with your social media planning.

The majority of content shared should be original content

I. Link Back to the University

Whenever possible, link back to Clarkson University sites. Ideally, posts should be very brief; redirecting a visitor to content that resides within the Clarkson web environment. When linking to a news article about Clarkson, check first to see whether you can link to a release directly from clarkson.edu.

Priority for posting is given to the main university accounts for any content that is created either by, or in conjunction with, the MER team.

For any official University social media account, the social media icon and/or profile image must comply with any applicable University branding standards.

J. Institutional Social Media Commenting Policy

The University expects conversations to follow the rules of polite discourse and asks that participants treat each other with respect. The University reserves the right to delete any comments. University employees will not post or approve post comments that include:

Harassment or personal attacks toward specific individuals or groups

Profanity and vulgar or abusive language

Threats of physical or bodily harm

Sensitive information (for example, information that could compromise public safety or intellectual property)

Offensive terms

Vendor/commercial promotions that are not officially sanctioned by Clarkson University.

Further questions regarding the Social Media Policy can be directed to the Director of News & Digital Content Services in the Marketing & External Relations office.

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History

Approved October 2011

Revised October 2024