Writing for social media

Social media allows you to put a human face on your agency. And you’ll be able to gauge user sentiment in real time which will help you serve your audience more effectively.

Social media best practices 

Define your goal. 

Define users’ needs and plan how you’ll meet them through your social channels.

Post with a goal in mind. Content should meet a specific need of your audience or provide important information.

Why are you engaging your audience on social media?

How will this help your overall communication goals?

Listen to your audience. 

Social media posts perform when they speak to user goals and interests, not the interests or agenda of the poster.

User needs should shape your social media strategy, not the other way around.

Vary the subjects of your posts. 

Be creative. Use engaging images, quotes, and headlines to share content. The more engaging your content is, the more likely it is to be shared among a greater audience.

One potential strategy to keep users engaged is to follow a 3:1 ratio between interesting, shareable content and official agency communications.

Be consistent. 

Sticking to a social media schedule is important for both the engagement and performance of your posts. Consistency shows that your agency prioritizes users and wants to engage with them and share pertinent information. Keep in mind that social media channels like Facebook will prioritize consistent posters with engaging content.

Social media calendars will help keep posts consistent. You can plan these calendars bi-annually, quarterly, monthly, or whatever cadence works best for your agency.

Consistent posting will yield better data. You’ll be able to determine which types of posts, and which day or time of posting, leads to the best engagement. You can use this information to further refine your strategy.

Be accessible. 

Any important content you post on social media should always be verifiable through your agency’s official website.

We don’t want to force people to join a social media site in order to get critical agency information. If necessary, your social media posts should provide a link back to your site.

Your social media homepage should provide an alternative government email address where users can send feedback.

Engage with user comments quickly when appropriate (see “Approaching User Comments and Interactions.”).

Always assume your content may be published and discussed in the media and would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other rules requiring public disclosure.

Be real. 

This is your chance to relate to your users on a human level, so keep using that plain language and a friendly, helpful tone. Don’t just shake your user’s hand – give them a fist bump.

You are your agency. 

Remember - anything you post on your agency’s social media account will be considered official agency communication. Always assume your content may be published and discussed in the media and would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other rules requiring public disclosure.

Personal social media accounts 

Your agency might have security concerns related to the public knowing who you are and your role within your agency. Make sure you’re aware of any agency or role-specific guidelines for personal social media accounts and follow them.

Approaching user comments and interactions 

It’s important to support a healthy dialog on social media. But it can be challenging to know how to approach user comments. Below you’ll find information to help guide your responses to user comments to ensure they are timely and appropriate.

Comment moderation 

You should have a moderation process in place for commenting. User comments should be reviewed before they get posted.

When possible, your blog and social media channels should make it clear whether comments will be moderated. They should also include a disclaimer along the lines of:

We welcome your comments and look forward to having courteous discussions. We do not discriminate against anybody’s opinion, but we reserve the right to delete any of the following:

• Off-topic comments
• Profane language or content
• Harassing language or tone
• Content that promotes or supports discrimination of others
• Obscene sexual content
• Solicitation of commerce
• Encouragement of illegal activity

• Information that can compromise the safety or security of the public
• Content that violates copyright or legal ownership of others’ material
• Promoting or opposing any person running for political office
• Promoting or opposing any ballot proposition
• Content that includes phone numbers, email addresses, or residential addresses
• Multiple, successive off-topic posts by a single user
• Repetitive posts copied and pasted by multiple users

Responding to comments 

Below you’ll find information to help guide your responses to user comments to ensure they are timely and appropriate.

Sometimes comments require a response. These comments may include:

• Incorrect information regarding your agency or its operation
• Comments driven by a negative experience with your agency
• Comments expressing a need for help or for direction to gain vital services

When responding, be sure to first consider the three “T”s:

• Time. Is the issue important enough to warrant your time to research a response? What’s the likely viewership?
• Tone. Do you sound professional? Is your response balanced and does it reflect positively on your agency?
• Trust. Can you back up what you’re saying? Stick to facts and cite your sources by including links, video, images, etc.

What about a private message?

Your agency’s social media account should not send direct or private messages to users on these platforms. If a person’s comments require you to engage with them directly, you should publicly respond on the post and ask the person to email their specific questions to your official agency email address.

Removing comments 

Here are some reasons to reject or remove a comment:

• Blatantly partisan political views
• Explicit commercial endorsements
• Discriminatory, racist, offensive, obscene, inflammatory, or otherwise objectionable statements, language, or content

Ignoring comments 

Some comments are best left ignored. Consider ignoring comments when:

• It’s a rant, joke, or satire
• It’s simply intended to bash or degrade others
• It’s trying to provoke you into an argument

When to report comments

If someone is using threatening language or promoting illegal activity, you must report it. Follow these steps:

1. Take a screenshot of the post
2. Do not delete or hide the post
3. Report the post to your agency’s Communications Director or PIO.

Linking, liking, and following 

Don’t like or follow something online if doing so goes against your agency or state policy. Before you “like” or follow another entity on social media. Consider what your action is communicating:

• Following an organization might be seen as endorsing the entire entity.
• Retweeting or reposting others’ content may only imply endorsement of the specific content that is being reposted.
• Do not “friend,” “like,” “follow,” “tweet,” or “retweet” about a partisan group or candidate in a partisan race or link to the social media accounts of such entities.
• It's fine to “friend,” “like,” or “follow” the official government Facebook or Twitter account of elected officials, even after they’ve begun their reelection campaign.

Political content 

Remember to keep your official agency voice politically neutral. Avoid posting about a state official’s attendance at a political event for a candidate in a partisan race.

Accessibility for social media 

Many of the same accessibility best practices for web pages also apply to social media.

Facebook 

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• Be sure to add captions to the photos you share. And you should add a caption file to videos, even if the video has text overlaid on it.
• Facebook actually has an accessibility team, who offer plenty of helpful ideas:
  • Facebook’s Accessibility Team’s Facebook Page.
  • Facebook’s Accessibility Team’s Twitter Account.
  • Facebook keyboard shortcuts available for screen reader users.

Twitter 

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• Use image descriptions that describe what’s happening in your photo.
• If your tweet links to audio or visual content, make sure your tweet acts as a descriptive caption so it provides context for the item you’re linking to.
• Use camelcase for multiple words within a hashtag (capitalize the first letters of compound words). Ex: use #DigitalGov not #digitalgov.
• Check out these Twitter shortcuts for screen reader users.

YouTube 

• Try to limit your use of music or other distracting sound effects in your videos.
• Provide closed captions for all your videos. There are many sites that can provide this service for free. If using Youtube’s own captioning service, be sure to verify that the transcription is correct before posting.
• If possible, use audio description files for all your videos. These files make videos accessible to people who are blind or low vision by using words to capture what is happening on screen.

Instagram 

• Instagram does not allow images or video to have alternate text. So you should provide a caption explaining the image or video.
• Use camelcase for multiple words within a hashtag.

Blogs 

• Use simple templates with few columns.
• Black text on white background is best. Try to avoid using green, blue, and yellow too close together.
• Don’t have your video or audio content autoplay on page load. Give users the choice to play it.