The Big Show
The University of South Carolina, through its website sc.edu or its main social media accounts, reserves the right to post or repost university-related social media content generated by faculty and staff members and/or students.
Publish with a Plan
Remember your platform goals, and post with those in mind. Don't publish too often or too infrequently. Evaluate your performance using social media metrics that matter, like impressions and engagement. Social media is not a popularity contest. Every unit's goals and plans will be different. Know your priorities, and measure your success against them, not what a unit across campus is doing.
Make It Accessible
Before posting, make sure that all of your content follows the university's Guides & Tutorials for digital accessibility.
Comment Posting
In general, administrators should post on affiliated social media platforms only in
the name of that unit. For example, John Doe, who administers the University of South
Carolina page on Facebook, should not appear as a commenter on the University of South
Carolina page on Facebook. This maintains the privacy of individuals who are administrators
of university social media, and it also preserves the consistency of the unit’s voice
online.
Responsiveness
If a question or comment is directed to a university social media site or page, strive
to respond in a timely and appropriate fashion. For non-crisis situations, a timely
response is defined as same day. Supervisors should determine who will be permitted
to respond directly to users and whether prior approval is required before issuing
a response.
Comment Moderation
University social media efforts encourage fans, followers and friends to share their thoughts with one another by commenting on stories, videos, links, posts, etc. within the following guidelines, which should be prominently displayed on the social media site.
- Comments must be relevant to a topic discussed and to the point.
- Comments should be constructive and absent of expletives, obscenity and vulgarity, in accordance with university guidelines/the Carolinian Creed.
- Posts that are abusive, contain profanity, are threatening in tone or devolve into personal attacks can be deleted.
- Posts with links that are determined to be spam or sales and advertising should be removed immediately.
- Account administrators reserve the right to review all comments and posted materials and remove such materials for any reason.
Deletion
Unless a commenter goes against the page rules you’ve laid out, deleting comments should rarely be an option. Remember that opinions are opinions, and free speech is free speech, even if it goes against what your page may be promoting. By creating your social media page, you’ve given users a platform to voice their opinions, and that’s what you want. Most often, censorship only leads to bigger problems.