Social Media

The following are guidelines for placing CCS-related content on social media sites.

Departmental Social Accounts

Getting Started

Before creating your official CCS social media channel, please send a proposal to Marketing & Communications for review and approval. All accounts must be approved through the Office of Marketing & Communications, who will provide governance, oversight and advice to all department social media administrators. If your account predates this new process, we are requesting that all existing accounts go through this same approval process. Approvals will be sent back within two business weeks. Please consider the following questions when considering a new social account:

  • What are your goals for the account?
  • Who is your target audience?
  • What platform are you hoping to use & why?
  • How often are you going to post?
  • What kind of content will you post?
  • Are you able to provide enough content to maintain a social presence year-round?
  • How will this support the college as a whole as well as the individual department/office?
  • Do you have the time to do this well?

Account Management and Monitoring

Every departmental social account needs at least one, full-time staff or faculty member managing it. To prevent lapses in engagement or turnover, please add CCS’s Social Media Manager as an admin to the account and be sure to share your login information as well. CCS’ Social Media Manager reserves all rights to review and remove inappropriate content and to shut down inactive accounts.

Content Owners are responsible for posting and using content and maintaining compliance with CCS policies and all local, state and federal laws, including but not limited to: the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), U.S. copyright law and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Social Media Do’s

  • Catalogue and retain an official account inventory and contact info for everyone who is posting/involved.
  • Create, maintain and monitor content on respective social media platforms and engage with users.
  • Post consistent, clear, quality content
  • Moderate content that violates hosting terms of service or is of a threatening/harassing nature.
  • Follow CCS’s main accounts and share when appropriate.
  • Ensure all content is relevant to the goals and objectives and upholds the standards and brand pillars of CCS.

Social Media Don’ts

  • Make sure you answer comments and direct messages in a timely manner. The common courtesy rule at CCS is no longer than 24 hours. Also, make sure your responses are courteous, professional and conversational.
  • Don’t post content that violates any laws or regulations.
  • Don’t use the College’s brand/name to endorse any view, product, private business, cause or political candidate.
  • Don’t represent personal opinions as college-endorsed views/policies.
  • Don’t promote external third-party fundraisers that do not directly benefit CCS. If you are approached about promoting a third-party fundraiser, please talk to Institutional Advancement and Marketing and Communications before moving forward.

Brand Standards and Style Guide

CCS social accounts need to convey our brand and be representative of a world-class art and design institution. To ensure that, follow these simple brand guidelines:

  • We need to make sure our account names are consistent. For undergraduate programs, please name your account ccs_departmentname. Ex: ccs_artpractice, ccs_photography, ccs_transportation. For graduate programs, please name your account ccsmfa_departmentname. Ex: ccsmfa_integrateddesign
  • Make sure you have a profile picture that is an official CCS departmental logo created and approved by the Marketing & Communications office.
  • Include the College’s main handle in your bio (ex. @ccs_detroit Product Design Department)
  • Your biography or about section should reflect your department description found on your CCS department site.
  • Follow CCS’s Style Guide [link] when designing posts, stories, etc. Consider using our official fonts, the official CCS colors, logos, etc.
  • When it comes to text – less is more! Images with too much text do not perform as well on social media.

Images

A few things to consider when posting:

  • Are your images sized correctly for posting?
  • Are your images crisp and clear?
  • Do your images properly represent the College and your department?
  • Can your image easily be cropped to 1:1?

Gifs: Gifs are fun and engaging. CCS Marketing & Communications has a library of them at your disposal.

Going “Live”

It is often useful to use live video to share demonstrations, guest lectures or other content. Please connect with CCS Marketing and Communications for guidance if needed.

Hashtags and Tagging

Hashtags are very important. It’s an easy way to connect your content to a specific topic, event, theme or conversation. Hashtags also make it easier to discover posts around specific topics, because hashtags aggregate all social media content with that same hashtag.

We request you use the following hashtags when posting:

#ccsdetroit      #ccsalumni      #ccsfamily

Be sure to tag the official @ccs_detroit account on all posts. This will give the Marketing & Communications team an opportunity to see all posts and share on the main account, when appropriate. Mentioning and tagging brings awareness to additional pages from the CCS community. Tagging also shows your content to a broader audience — the audience of both your account and the page you tag — meaning your message will reach more people.

Personal Social Accounts

CCS employees are welcome to represent CCS on their personal social accounts using the following guidelines:

Including CCS in your profile is one way to spread the word – but doing so means agreeing to act professionally on your account. Clearly identify yourself as an employee of the College in any business-related discussions. Be respectful and note that your opinions do not represent the views and opinions of CCS, unless specifically authorized to do so.

Sensitive information should never be shared via social platforms (yes, even over Direct Messages). Similar to College email, employees should have no expectation of privacy when using or posting on social media websites

Be aware of liability. You are legally liable for what you post on your own sites and on others.
Be selective. Not everything needs a response. When you see criticism of the college online, don’t feel compelled to respond. If you have the ability to correct an error or factually incorrect statement, or give someone direction to a webpage that does so, that’s helpful. If you feel there is a post or comment that is sensitive and needs response, forward it to your supervisor or to CCS’s Social Media Manager.

Community Standards

CCS has established a set of community standards to govern all participation in our social media accounts, which are administered and moderated by Marketing & Communications. 

Additionally, individual departments that administer social accounts across any social media channels reserve the right to delete comments, replies or other content and interactions that they deem to be in violation of CCS’s social media community standards or in violation of the social media platforms’ community standards. The administrators may also take action to report, block or ban users from social media platforms for violations. 

Social media submissions that will be removed and reported may include, but are not limited to:

  • Harassing, intimidating or threatening comments to another person
  • Comments that incite violence or other action in violation of any federal or state anti-discrimination laws
  • Sexually explicit and sexually vulgar language and profanity
  • Comments that promote illegal activity
  • Comments that include false or defamatory information
  • Posts that misrepresent or hide the poster’s identity
  • Comments that violate privacy or confidentiality
  • Comments unrelated to the topic or to the College community
  • Repetitive comments and spam posts

Smoking

State and local laws prohibit smoking in all parts of College buildings. City ordinance prohibits smoking within 15 feet of any building entrance.

In the interest of providing a safe and healthy environment for all staff, faculty, students and visitors, and in accordance with the Michigan Clean Indoor Act and the City of Detroit Smoking Pollution Control Ordinance, smoking is prohibited in all CCS buildings and within 15 feet of all building entrances and air intakes.

Enforcement of Policy

The success of this policy depends upon the thoughtfulness, consideration and cooperation of smokers and non-smokers. Students are encouraged to ask offending smokers to stop smoking. Any student smoking in a non-smoking area must immediately stop upon being requested to do so. Failure to do so will result in formal disciplinary action as outlined below.

Complaints

Complaints regarding the smoking of faculty and staff should be made to the Department Chair, the employee’s immediate supervisor or the Director of Human Resources. Complaints regarding students smoking should be made to the Director of Student Life.

Disciplinary Action

All student complaints should be made in writing to the Dean of Students. The Dean of Students will notify the student in writing that a complaint has been issued. A second offense will result in a $50 fine. A third offense will result in a $100 fine. Further violations will be subject to CCS disciplinary policies, up to and including expulsion.

Students wishing to contest the above may do so in writing to the Office of Student Affairs. Evidence of non-violation should be attached.