(Last updated 27 Feb. 2012)

The following document is posted by the University to guide SFU faculty members, employees or students who manage social media channels online in the name of the University. It may also aid those who have personal social media channels. It is a compilation of “best practices” from universities and social media pioneers.

Blogs, social networks and Web sites such as Wikipedia, Facebook, Flickr, Second Life and YouTube are exciting channels to share knowledge, express creativity, and connect with others. The University supports your participation in these online communities.

The following guidelines from respected online university, agency and industry sources will help you use these forums effectively, protect your personal and professional reputation, and help you to follow SFU branding and policies.

Getting Started – for SFU Accounts

• Naming of a social-media account should always include “SFU”. (e.g., SFUPAMR, SFUNEWS, SFU_IT, etc.)
  
• If you are creating an official SFU social-media site or a video for posting in locations such as YouTube, please contact SFU Public Affairs and Media Relations (PAMR) for an approved logo and other images, and to ensure coordination with other SFU sites and content. Contact Steve Ray at seray@sfu.ca
  
  
• Determine who will be empowered to respond directly to users and when a supervisor’s approval may be needed.
  
  
• Set up e-mail notifications so you know when someone posts to your area. (YouTube and Flickr, for example, offer this when someone posts a comment.)
  
  
• Keep comments as open as possible—do not automatically or arbitrarily censor a negative post. (Although posts that are obviously spam or offensive can be removed.)
  
  
• Have and display comments guidelines. For example, see the SFU News Comment guidelines at http://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/comment_guidelines.html or our Facebook guidelines
  
  
• Know who your audience is. Put yourself in the mind of the user. For example, the tone and information provided by SFU PAMR, which uses Twitter to target journalists, will be different from the tone of SFU Volunteers.
  
  
• Think about how you are going to measure success: Clicks on a blog, unique page views, number of comments, tools such as HootSuite, counts of followers and fans.
  
  
• On Twitter, the most popular tweets give the reader a link through which they can get a fuller message, or explore related documents and websites.
  
• The minimum branding requirement for an SFU channel is an approved logo and the name "SFU" or "Simon Fraser University". It's obviously difficult on Twitter to use the full name (which eats up 23 of your 140 characters) so a simple "#SFU" is OK there; but you can use the full name in posting on Facebook and others.
  

General recommendations

The keys to success in social media are being honest about who you are, being thoughtful before you post, and respecting the purpose of the community where you are posting.

Be transparent.
Be honest about your identity. If you are authorized by your supervisor to represent SFU in social media, say so. If you choose to post about SFU on your personal time, please identify yourself as an SFU faculty or staff member. Never hide your identity for the purpose of promoting SFU through social media. A good resource about transparency in online communities is the Blog Council’s “Disclosure Best Practices Toolkit” at http://blogcouncil.org/disclosure/.

Be accurate.
Make sure that you have all the facts before you post. It’s better to verify information first than to have to post a correction or retraction later. Cite and link to your sources whenever possible; after all, that is how you build community. If you make an error, correct it quickly and visibly. This will earn you respect in the online community. 

Be respectful.
You are more likely to achieve your goals or sway others to your beliefs if you are constructive and respectful. If you feel angry or passionate about a subject, it is wise to delay posting until you are calm and clear-headed. Your reputation, and SFU’s, are best served when you remain above the fray.

Be a valued member.
If you join a social network such as a Facebook group or comment on someone’s blog, make sure you are contributing valuable insights. Don’t post information about topics like SFU events or a book you’ve authored unless you are sure it will be of interest to readers.  Self-promoting behaviour is usually viewed negatively and can lead to you being banned from websites or groups.

Think before you post. 
There is no such thing as a “private” social media site. Search engines can turn up posts years after the publication date. Comments can be forwarded or copied. Archival systems save information even if you delete a post. You may view your posted material as your intellectual property; but the fine-print rules of the social media channel you are using may establish otherwise.

Maintain confidentiality.
Do not post confidential or proprietary information about SFU, its students, its faculty, its employees or alumni. Use good ethical judgment and follow university policies. If you discuss a situation involving individuals on a social-media site, be sure that they cannot be identified. As a guideline, don’t post anything that you would not present at a conference.

Check often. 
Visit your channel at least twice daily, and preferably have the application open all day. (e.g., Twitter, Facebook.)

Update Often.
Update often your status or tweets. Update your status regularly and strategically. Use your status update to remind your network what you do and what you know.

Events, photo albums, videos
SFU-endorsed events, photo albums, videos, etc., should be created on, and be administered from, official SFU Accounts. For example, if an event is being created and posted on Facebook, and the event is an SFU event, officially endorsed by the university, it should be posted by one of SFU's official Facebook Pages, not from a personal account.

Respond to questions quickly.
For questions directed to your SFU channel, respond as quickly as possible—within the hour, if possible; at least within the day. Even if it is only to say, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out and get back to you”.)

Approve Quickly.
Approve posts or comments as soon as possible, within 24 hours. (e.g., comments on blogs, YouTube, Flickr etc.)

Give feedback on rejected posts.
If you reject a post to a blog or comment section (due to it not being within your comment guidelines), contact the poster and explain politely why it has been removed.

Be aware of liability.
You can be held legally liable for what you post on your site and on the sites of others. Individual bloggers have been held liable for commentary deemed to be copyrighted, defamatory, libelous or obscene (as defined by the courts). Employers are increasingly conducting web searches on job candidates before extending offers. Be sure that what you post today will not come back to haunt you.

SFU Policy GP24
See also SFU Policy GP24, “Fair Use of Information and Communications Technology”. This policy covers use of the University’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) resources, establishes rights and responsibilities regarding the management and use of these resources; and makes users accountable for their use of the University’s ICT resources. Policy GP24 is online at http://www.sfu.ca/policies/general/gp24.htm

Personal site guidelines

Disclaimer.
A common practice among individuals who write about the field in which they work is to include a disclaimer on their site, usually on their “About Me” page.

If you discuss higher education on your own social media site, we suggest you include a sentence similar to this:
“The views expressed on this [blog, website, forum] are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Simon Fraser University.”

This is particularly important if you are a department head or administrator. Be aware that if you identify your affiliation with SFU, readers will associate you with the university, even with a disclaimer that your views are your own.

Don’t be a mole.
Never pretend to be someone else and post about SFU. Tracking tools enable supposedly anonymous posts to be traced right back to their authors. There have been several high-profile and embarrassing cases of company executives anonymously posting about their own organizations, and being caught.

Don’t use the SFU logo or make endorsements.
Do not use the SFU logo, athletic logo or any other official SFU marks or images on your personal online sites. Do not use SFU’s name to promote or endorse any product, cause, political party or candidate.

Protect your identity.
While you want to be honest about yourself, don’t provide personal information that scam artists or identity thieves could use against you. Think twice before listing your home address or telephone number or your work telephone or e-mail address. It is a good idea to create a separate, non-SFU e-mail address that is used only with your social media site.

Follow a code of ethics.
There are numerous codes of ethics for bloggers and other active participants in social media, all of which will help you participate responsibly in online communities. If you have your own social media site, you may wish to post your own code of ethics.

For examples, see:
http://forrester.typepad.com/charleneli/2004/11/blogging_policy.html
http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000215.php
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/04/draft-bloggers-code-of-conduct.html

Link back.
You are welcome to link from your social media site to www.SFU.ca.