Policies

Account Setup

Review our New Account Setup page for account setup and security requirements.

Accounts should follow all guidelines and best practices on this site as well as the university's brand and visual guidelines.

Administrators must ensure accounts represent the units for which they were created and should not try to represent the university as a whole.

Monitor Accounts

Accounts must monitor and moderate comments. You may include Texas State's commenting policy on relevant pages.

Texas State encourages discussion, questions, and criticism but asks that you keep your comments and posts relevant and respectful. We may remove any post or ban anyone who violates these guidelines. We will not tolerate personal attacks, inappropriate language, racism, and spamming. Texas State reserves the right to remove posts advertising commercial products as well as posts that are inaccurate or that violate the channel's terms of service.

Social media response graphic

Reporting Alarming Information

Threats of violence

If you see a worrisome post involving threats of violence, or if a post is brought to your attention in a direct message, contact the Texas State University Police Department. To report an emergency or crime in progress, call 911.

Student conduct

For posts involving potential violations of the code of student conduct, administrators must contact the Dean of Students Office.

Sexual misconduct

If someone reports a violation of the sexual misconduct policy, administrators must contact the Title IX coordinator. 

All reporting obligations that apply to faculty and staff offline, apply on social media. 

Report It

Texas State is committed to providing a safe and supportive environment for all members of our community. Additional resources for reporting can be found on our Report It site.

Keep Accounts Active

Accounts should be kept current. Any Texas State social media sites with no activity for 90 days or more should be inactivated. 

Personal activity

Administrators cannot conduct any personal activity under the guise of official accounts.

Protect Private Information

Social media administrators must protect private and confidential information and abide by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

This is especially important in dealing with students who post questions online about their educational circumstances (e.g., “Did my credits transfer?”). Social media administrators must direct such questions to appropriate, official channels (i.e., email or phone). Direct messages are not an appropriate place to discuss confidential information. 

Your Content is Public

Social media content, including posts, comments, messages, and replies, are available to the public and reflect on Texas State University.

While we encourage you to interact with the community, you should not conduct official business (e.g., anything involving confidential student, faculty, or staff information) on social media accounts. Refer official business through official administrative channels such as email.

Social media is always evolving and changing. Social media account administrators should attempt to keep content on their accounts for two years to meet ADM320 General Correspondence records retention requirements.

Obey Copyright Law

Social media administrators are expected to follow all copyright and intellectual property laws when posting to any social network. Always get permission to use copyrighted material, and always give credit for the material. UPPS 01.04.27 contains a detailed description of this policy.

Make Content Accessible

Texas State strives to make content accessible to all users, and we must adhere to ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) standards. In order to achieve this, descriptive text must be applied to video and images when possible. 

Add alt text to photos

Alternative text describes images to individuals who are unable to see them. Learn more about using and writing alt text on Texas State’s Digital Accessibility site.

The process for adding alt text to images varies by platform. Refer to each platform's help site to learn more.

Add captions to videos

Captions are essential for ensuring your video is accessible to students, faculty, staff, and members of the public who are deaf or hard of hearing. Learn more about video captioning:

Each social media platform has different capabilities when it comes to captioning: 

  • Facebook allows you to add a video captioning file, called an .SRT file, to videos that are uploaded. Keep in mind that although Facebook allows for auto-captioning, they are not always correct and must be double-checked for errors. 
  • Twitter allows you to upload an .SRT subtitle file for a video via Twitter Media on desktop before creating a device. You can also do this through a mobile device. 
  • Instagram allows you to upload an .SRT file for video captions for an ad or IGTV only. Reels and Stories have an auto-caption option which is not always accurate. These should be double-checked for any vulgar or misspelled words before posting.  
  • Snapchat does not support captions natively. 

Register Your Accounts

All social media accounts associated with Texas State University must be registered with University Marketing. This registration process includes providing a list of current names and emails for the individuals that manage each social media channel. Please fill out our registration form. 

Social Directory Listing Criteria

If you would like to appear within the social media directory, an account must meet all of the following criteria:

  • Registered with the Division of Marketing and Communications
  • Only follow accounts relevant to Texas State or groups related to their institutional purpose
  • Post content on weekly basis
  • Contain content relevant to the Texas State community
  • Include a link to the unit's official webpage
  • Provide up-to-date contact information
  • Feature a relevant and appropriate profile and cover photo
  • Engage followers in the form of likes, retweets, comments, etc.
  • Represent a university unit such as a college, department, office or center; student organizations will not be listed on the directory

If you have questions regarding these requirements, please contact us.

Reporting Fake Accounts

Facebook

If you have a Facebook account and want to report someone that's pretending to be you or someone you know:

  1. Go to the profile of the impersonating account
  2. If you can't find it, try searching for the name used on the profile or asking your friends if they can send you a link to it.
  3. Click "..." on the cover photo and select Report
  4. Follow the on-screen instructions for impersonation to file a report

Twitter

Report an account for impersonation.

Instagram

Report an account for impersonation.

Terms of Service

Social media sites are third party sites and have terms of service and policies that are not governed by the university or the State of Texas. These third party sites are not official Texas State websites, and the third party's website terms of service and policies apply.