Social Media Policy and Participation Guidelines

Social Media Participation Guidelines

We appreciate your participation in Vanderbilt Kennedy Center social networking communities such as Facebook and Twitter. We hope these are helpful channels for you to stay informed and engage with our organization.

Please consider that social networking communities are public forums and the information that you contribute will be available to and viewed by others. We recommend you take care to consider the public nature of these forums before posting personal details about yourself or others. The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center and Vanderbilt University have no control over the policies and practices of these third party sites that you will be subject to by choosing to participate.

Please be respectful to others at all times. Please do not post offensive content or material that could be considered an infringement of the rights of others. We reserve the right to remove postings or block users for any reason, but specifically if slanderous, obscene, threatening, or soliciting activities occur.

The Vanderbilt Kennedy Center intends to use these information platforms for educational purposes only. It is not intended as an endorsement or to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Posts to sell items, even when a Vanderbilt Kennedy Center program benefits, are not permitted on Vanderbilt Kennedy Center social networking communities.

Employees of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center or Vanderbilt University should remember that all Vanderbilt policies and laws apply, including but not limited to Privacy, HIPAA, Security and Safety. You are responsible for reviewing these polices. Please consult your manager if you have questions about the appropriateness of your comment.

By participating with the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center in social networking communities, you agree to indemnify the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center against any damages, losses, liabilities, judgments, costs or expenses arising out of a claim by a third party relating to any posts you have made.

Help For Project Stakeholders

The request/approval process below helps to ensure that social media presences are well maintained, moderated, and aligned with Vanderbilt Kennedy Center and Vanderbilt University policies. In addition, the process is designed to make Center-affiliated social media projects more successful by identifying communications goals and fitting them into effective communications strategy both for the given project and for the VKC as a whole.

Though this process, VKC Communications will:

• Consult on most effective tools, goals, strategies; or arrange consultation with VU or VUMC Communications/Marketing.
• Provide technical consultation, including ways to monitor site traffic.
• Provide links from VKC website and/or social networking sites to help promote affiliated sites.
• Promote affiliated sites through various VKC communication strategies.

After you read the policies below, get started with your social media project by completing this form.

Social Media Policies

Any VKC-affiliated entity that wants to establish a social networking site should submit information via a web-based request form for approval by the VKC Communications Director and set-up by the VKC Web Specialist. The form requests the following:

• VKC-approved Social Networking tool(s) to be used. Initially, VKC-approved Social Networking sites are Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress, Blogger, or VKC-hosted blogs.
• Site name, Content Owner, and Content Moderator.
• The image proposed to brand the site. VKC Web specialist will add a small VKC logo on each VKC-approved site.
• Your social media goals and strategies, including your team members, primary goals, how you’ll measure success, audiences, other sites relevant to your site, content description, design elements, evaluation steps and timeline. Link to Vanderbilt Social Media Handbook for advice.
• Verification that Owner and Moderator agree to
  • Read and comply with Vanderbilt-wide policies on Electronic Communication (HR#025, Acceptable Use Policy, and Conflict of Interest. Find these policies here.
  • Use the standard brief VKC description provided. (VUMC Social Media Toolkit provides brief descriptions of major VUMC units.)
  • Post disclaimer stating that Moderator reserves the right to remove inappropriate comments. Moderator will check site daily and remove any inappropriate comments. See Vanderbilt Social Media policies for examples of “inappropriate.”
  • Moderator will be responsible for gaining expressed consent for use of photos, images, video, text, slideshow presentations, artwork if it is not obtained from VKC Communications. VKC Communications can assist with consent forms and should receive copies of consent forms. Linking to non-VKC- or non-VU-produced videos (e.g., provided by a parent, or linked from video sites like YouTube) is not advised and is not permitted without permission of VKC Communications.