Social Media Guidelines

Updated March 2026

University Marketing manages and maintains a strategy for the following official university social media channels.

  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • X
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube

If your functional area would like to create a social media account that represents the Kutztown University Brand in any capacity, it is required that you meet with University Marketing. Email to be put in contact with the right person to advise you.

These guidelines apply to Kutztown University faculty, staff, students, alumni, and any organization, department, office, club that would like to officially represent Kutztown University on a social media network.

General Guidelines

  1. Represent the KU Brand
    • Brand awareness is a term used to describe the level of familiarity consumers have with the brand and how recognizable the “look” of the brand is to its target audience.
    • Any posting on official social media networks should represent KU as accurately as possible and be aligned with the university's mission and goals.
    • Maintain professionalism, accuracy, and correct mistakes.
    • If you create an official social media account, you may use the university's licensed logos. Be sure to adhere to all application usage guidelines and do not alter the images. Unofficial or personal accounts may not use the licensed logos as it can confuse the users as to what is official and unofficial.
  2. Obey Laws and Policies- All use of social media must adhere to applicable laws (such as FERPA and copyright) and university and PASSHE policies (such as the KU acceptable use policy). 
    • Do not infringe upon others' intellectual property. When sharing information, always be sure to provide proper credit to the original author when possible.
    • Do not post confidential or proprietary university information.
    • Do not use personal social media accounts to conduct official university business and vice versa. Any use of personal accounts while using KU time or resources must adhere to the KU acceptable use policy. 
    • Comments – even those that are unfavorable or off-topic – cannot be deleted. Because KU is a public university, freedom of speech applies to its public digital spaces as well as its physical spaces.
  3. Endorsements- Do not use the official platform to endorse any product, cause or political party or candidate.
  4. Best practices for content creation- Craft content that resonates with your audience by developing a clear purpose, maintaining consistency, and providing value, all while supporting KU's goals and vision.
  5. Develop a strategy- What is your mission? Why is this account necessary to the success of your functional area?
  6. Know your audience- Who are your trying to reach and why?
  7. Reach your audience- Where are they? What type of content will they resonate with? Streamline platform and account usage where possible.
  8. Keep your audience- Establish trust with consistent and beneficial content. Utilize a customer service approach regarding questions and inquiries.
  9. Track your growth- Utilize organic data insights. What is working? Not working? Adjust accordingly.

Accessibility Guidelines

People use a variety of tools to access the internet. More than just the typical keyboard, monitor and mouse, there are other assistive devices, such as screen readers, Braille displays, text-to-speech software, and assistive listening systems. It is estimated that at least 15% of the world’s population (about 1 billion people) experience some form of disability. This number can increase when you account for temporary (such as broken limbs or symptoms following surgery) or situational disabilities (such as noise, poor lighting, distractions, etc.).  

Keeping your social media content accessible shows compassion – that you recognize exclusion, and you are presenting information in the clearest way possible. It also helps to maintain compliance with state and federal laws. Below are some tips for making social media posts more accessible to all users. 

  • Tip 1: Provide Descriptive Image Captions

    Descriptive captions and alternative text (also known as “alt text”) allow people to visualize images when they can’t see them. Several social media platforms use object recognition technology to provide automatic alternative texts; however, there are limits to its reliability. It’s always better to add a custom description when you can.

    Facebook, X, Instagram, and LinkedIn provide specific fields for you to add alt text for images and GIFs. When it’s not possible to add alt text, include descriptive captions instead. 

    When writing descriptive alternative text:

    • Write in plain language. Avoid jargon, slang and technical terms unless they are appropriate. If using acronyms, add a space or period between letters (Example: U.S.A. is better than USA)
    • Convey the Context. Focus on accurately describing what is seen in the image, rather than the length of the description. There is a difference between a description of “image of a chart” and “a bar chart illustrating annual increases in forest fires, peaking at 100 this year.” Also, consider positional information about the perspective of the view, or location of objects in the picture as they relate to one another.
    • Skip “Image of…” or “Picture of…” as most screen readers will interpret that there is an image there already.
    • Mention identifiers if it is important to understand the image. This could include color of objects, but also identifying information of individuals, such as skin tone (light, medium, or dark skin tone), if needed and appropriate. See Emojipedia to review their descriptions of emojis with different skin tones for reference.
    • Transcribe Text. If the image has text in it that is central to its meaning, make sure to include it in the description. 
  • Tip 2: Make Text Accessible
    • Write in Plain Language. Avoid jargon, slang, or technical terms unless they are appropriate.
    • Use Punctuation. Assistive devices will pause for varied lengths at commas, periods, and other punctuation marks. It is helpful to use punctuation, as needed, to avoid the appearance of a run-on sentence.
    • Don’t Overuse Caps. Full caps can be difficult to read and misinterpreted by screen readers.
    • Use CamelCase for Multiword Hashtags. Capitalize the first letter of each word to make hashtags more legible and help to prevent screen reader errors. Varied cases (to indicating mocking) are also difficult for assistive tech to interpret.
    • Put Hashtags and Mentions at the End. Punctuation marks are read aloud by screen readers. Be mindful of how hashtags or @ mentions can disrupt your post.
    • Limit Emoji Use. Emojis can be read aloud by assistive technology devices; you can find their descriptions on emojipedia.org. These descriptions are unique and specific, but can vary across platform and/or operating system. Excessive emoji use is not advised, as assistive tech could read each one. It is also best to have emojis at the end of a post so as not to misunderstand the meaning of your text. On the other hand, ASCII Art is not accessible, so it shouldn’t be used (Example: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
    • Avoid Special Characters and Formatting. Alternative fonts/characters may not be interpreted by a screen reader and are typically omitted. 
  • Tip 3: Include Video Captions

    Closed captions are crucial for viewers with hearing impairments. They also enhance the viewing experience for people watching in their non-native language, or viewers in sound-off environments. Captions can even benefit children learning to read.  

    As with alt text, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram will autogenerate captions; however, these are not always accurate and should be edited before publishing. X and LinkedIn currently don’t support auto-captions, so you would need to upload a caption file. When editing captions, it is most helpful to break them with punctuation as you would natural language (correct capitalization, commas, periods, etc.), as those with hearing impairments often say it is most difficult to follow captions that seem like one run-on sentence. 

  • Tip 4: Color

    Use color contrast of a minimum of 4.5:1 between the text and background color. There are online tools, such as WebAIM’s Contrast Checker, to check the contrast you are using, but in general, avoid green and red or blue and yellow combinations, as they are difficult to read. Text over images can also be difficult to read, so consider using a solid background, if possible.

    As some individuals may be color blind, it is best not to use color alone to convey meaning. It is also important to note that colors may mean one thing in a particular culture, but may not have the same implication in another culture.  Some marketing/social media managers will create hidden/private “test” accounts that they can use to post and test content before making it publicly available.

    When in doubt, each of the major social media platforms has information on their websites about accessibility and how to make sure your content is accessible to a wider audience using their tools.