Standard Policy on Social Media

Question

What is a solid across-the-social-media policy for a library to have for use on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and whatever else may be used in the future?

Important considerations:

• log in information sharing
• sharing posting/maintenance duties among staff
• access to the main email account for each medium
• engagement with other users (answering/handling comments, complaints, trolls)
• posting/sharing frequency
• retweeting/resharing from other sources
• photography/video use (photo/image releases for staff, patrons, etc?)
• when/how to adopt a specific social medium (e.g. new social media platform debuts, what criteria does the library use to decide to join?)

Answer 1

I am social media administrator for our library and follow the standards set by the social media director for the college. The college senate did accept these as guidelines that anyone posting/using social media should follow.

• Post frequently (minimum of 2 times per week)
• Do not post images of students (unless written permission is obtained from student)
• Retweeting/reposting is okay, though if retweeting a picture you should give the account holder credit
• It is okay to respond directly to a post/tweet from a student
• Name one person in the library as the admin, and one as a backup in case of absences so that posting appears seamless. Log in information to the account is shared only between administrators of the library facebook account and the college social media director.

As far as when/how to adopt which medium, we chose Facebook over others because of popularity and Delicious because of its relevancy for libraries.