The Department of Marketing and Communication manages the Augsburg University flagship accounts on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and X. Here are some guidelines to keep in mind as you run your department or organization’s accounts.

Social Media Guidelines—Faculty and Staff

Augsburg has published social media guidelines. These guidelines are available in the Employee Handbook, which can be found on the Human Resources website. Please read the guidelines, and follow them whenever you use social media when you are acting officially on behalf of Augsburg. Faculty and staff also should be mindful of other Augsburg policies.

Social Media Guidelines—Students and Student Organizations

The Social and Electronic Communication policy offers general guidelines for creating a social media account and a high level overview for how to approach posting in representation of your student group.

Before You Begin

Social media is very time-consuming, and a very public activity. Before your department decides to take on the responsibility of social media, ask the following questions:

1. What are the goals of using social media?
2. Who is the audience we are trying to reach?
3. What types of information do we want to share?
4. Are we already leveraging existing communications vehicles, including our website, A-mail, and digital screens? If not, why not?
5. Who will be responsible for posting, monitoring, and maintaining our presence? How will we handle comments that potentially are negative, critical, and/or damaging to the department and Augsburg?
6. How will we build awareness that our department has added new communications tools to its offerings? What strategy will we use to build our following in social media?
7. Who will serve as our department’s social media administrator with the responsibility of daily monitoring of our social media outlets to ensure certain posts are responded to in a reasonable time, to remove comments determined inappropriate according to the Social Media Comment Policy (below), and to post regularly to the site to drive engagement?

Social Media Comment Policy

Review Augsburg’s Social Media Comment Policy for more details.

Photography and Media Consent Policy

Please review Augsburg’s media consent policy for complete details or to obtain a media consent form. In general, students who are photographed or interviewed for Augsburg publications, whether print or digital, should sign a media consent form. Consent to be photographed is also required in private spaces on campus, including classrooms, residence halls, the Center for Wellness and Counseling, and library study rooms.

Please be aware that individual consent is not required for filming or photography that takes place in public spaces, including (but not limited to) Augsburg-hosted events in Hoversten Chapel, Oren, Sateren Auditorium, the Commons, the Quad or other outdoor spaces; Augsburg-hosted sporting events; and events that take place on public property (such as Murphy Square).

If you are attending a public event with a photographer present, you can let that person know if you do not wish to be photographed. You can also contact the Marketing and Communications Department at marcomm@augsburg.edu if you are concerned about a photograph, if you see a photo of yourself in a publication or on Augsburg’s social media that you wish to have taken down, or if you wish to update a previous media consent form.

Inside Augsburg Social Media Feed

To be featured on the social media feed on Inside Augsburg, please tag @Augsburg University on Facebook and LinkedIn and @augsburguniversity on Instagram. We are then notified of your post and can share it to the Inside Augsburg feed as our timings and strategy allows. You can also contact marcomm@augsburg.edu by email to request that a post be included on Inside Augsburg.

Branded Social Media Profile and Cover Images

MarComm has developed branded profile and cover images for use on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X. You can request a customized profile image for your department based on a template. Academic or administrative departments will use the Cross A; athletics and student organizations will use the Spirit Mark (Eagle). A number of branded cover photos are available on Augsburg’s primary Facebook page. Simply select an image, save it to your desktop, and then upload it to your Facebook page. Contact marcomm@augsburg.edu with questions or to request specific photos.

Access to Augsburg Photos

MarComm has curated a selection of photos highlighting athletics, indoor and outdoor campus photos, classroom experience, and student engagement if you’re looking for a quintessential Augsburg photo to post on your department’s social media. You can access these photos on Google Drive.

Account Access

When creating a departmental Facebook page, LinkedIn page, Instagram account, X account, or YouTube account, please ensure that more than one person has administrative privileges to maintain continuity and access in the event of staff changes. For Facebook, make sure more than one person has full control in case they need to add or remove other managers.

We recommend that you contact marcomm@augsburg.edu or your LFC to request that a staff member from Marketing and Communications or IT be given administrative rights to all departmental social media accounts. This is a critical step because it allows Augsburg to remove individual administrators from the site if they leave Augsburg, thereby retaining the integrity of the page and ability by others to continue to use the page going forward.

Facebook Information and Account Recovery

In the past, IT created “ghost” email accounts (e.g., “department_social@augsburg.edu”) to create department Facebook accounts, and those Facebook accounts have since been deactivated or removed from Facebook. Please review Facebook Page Tips and Tricks for more information about creating a new Facebook page, posting, and accessing an account no one in your department has current access to.