What is Facebook?
Facebook is the largest social network in the world with more than 500 million users. People use Facebook to catch up with friends and colleagues, share news, information, photos, video, and more with people and organizations.
Why should I use Facebook?
Facebook offers an ideal opportunity to showcase your Truman department or program and build recognition, while encouraging participation and networking. Truman encourages the use of Facebook to connect with prospective and current students, staff, faculty, alumni, and friends of the University.
For many Truman organizations and departments, a Facebook page is the flagship of their social media presence. Facebook provides the platform to send information, receive feedback and encourage interaction among your fans.
How do I use Facebook?
Begin by setting up your organization’s account on Facebook here.
Create an “official” page for your Truman organization. Including “Truman State University” in the title will make it easier for users to find your page.
Facebook has Pages, Groups, and People. Know which one will work for you.
- Pages are accessible by the general public. They are searchable and can be seen by anyone even if they are not registered or logged into Facebook. A person who “Likes” your page is called a Fan. Pages have many features, such as the ability to create calls-to-action, polls, buttons, and promoted posts. They are generally intended for organizations, departments, and businesses to connect with users who like them. Pages are not connected to any particular person’s account: Once you create a page, you can assign other Facebook friends to be Administrators, Editors, or Moderators on that page. Fans may or may not see your page’s posts in their newsfeed, depending on a number of factors.
- If your goal is to create a small community on Facebook, or need to get important info out to a group on a regular basis, consider creating a Group. Groups can be created by anyone and about any topic, as a forum for people to share their opinions and interest in that subject. Unlike Pages, Groups can be public, closed, or secret. Notifications to those in your Group will appear in your members’ Facebook Inbox like an e-mail. If personal communication to a group of people is your goal, forming a Group is a better option.
- We strongly recommend against using a “Person” account for your group or organization. It’s not the appropriate medium, and you will be unable to assign others to manage that account without sharing a Faceboook password, which is definitely a bad idea.
Do:
- Review Facebook’s Terms and Conditions.
- Obtain consent if you collect any information from users, making it clear that you (and not Facebook) are collecting the information, and post a privacy policy that will be strictly followed.
- Keep your contact information accurate and up-to-date. Do not include personal contact information on your Truman-recognized account unless it is appropriate to the purpose of your Truman organization, and in that case, keep it to a minimum.
Don’t:
- Use your Truman-recognized profile for your own commercial gain or for communications or activities that are purely personal in nature.
- Share your password or do anything to jeopardize the security of your account.
- Post content or take action that infringes or violates someone else’s rights.
- Post or knowingly permit the posting of content or any other use of your Truman-recognized account to cause harm, embarrassment, defamation, insult, or injury to any person or entity. This does not prohibit frank discussions, criticism, or opinion. The following content and online activity is strictly prohibited: lewd or indecent conduct, threat of physical harm, stalking, forgery, intentional disruption of university activities, advocating or causing the damage or destruction of university property, illegal discrimination, harassment (including sexual harassment), or any intentionally malicious, defamatory, degrading, or hateful material.
- Post content or take action that violates the law.
- Post identification documents or sensitive or confidential financial, medical, educational, or other personal information of any person without that person’s express, prior consent.
- Tag users or send e-mail invitations to non-users without their consent.
Start posting!
- Respond to wall posts & messages. Even the negative ones should be acknowledged and engaged.
- Keep it real. Be conversational, informal, and always remember to be respectful of others.
- Encourage involvement and interaction among fans. Facebook is designed to maximize involvement among users for an open line of communication. Use it to your advantage to collect feedback and provide users with a richer online experience with your organization.
- Update frequently. Updates at least three times per week are recommended, but make sure each update contains valuable information your fans can use. Meaningless updates can drive your followers to not pay attention to your page, or even worse, remove your page from their news feed.
- Monitor your page frequently. It is critical to monitor your page daily so that you can keep up with the conversation and activity (and spam) on your page.
- Use Facebook’s applications to make your page more dynamic. Add photos, videos, discussion boards, RSS feeds, etc.
- Promote your page and interact with other campus pages. Ask the members of your organization to follow your page and network with other organizations on Facebook by “Liking” their page or adding them to your page’s favorites.
- Use tags (@). In a status update, type the @ symbol followed directly (no space) by the name of another Facebook page you want to tag. For example, a status update from Truman State University might say, “Congrats to @Truman State University Bulldog Athletics for the football win!” The Truman status update will show up on the Athletics wall by simply using that tagging technique.