Social Media Guidelines

The NPS Office of University Communications recognizes the vital role that social media plays in communicating, collaborating, and interacting with students, faculty, staff, and the general public. If your unit has determined that the use of social media will advance your ability to connect with the NPS community, a handful of guidelines and policies are available.

Navy Social Media Handbook

In 2019, the Navy issued the Navy Social Media Handbook, as the medium had become a primary tool for the world’s consumption of information. Whether your organization intends to use social media or not, the handbook sets forth a number of best practices in both professional and personal uses of these tools.

As a university, NPS is committed to utilizing social media in an open forum of the highest standards of freedom of speech and expression. These additional best practices are intended to help guide your participation in NPS social media efforts ...

Protect Personal Information

For safety and security reasons, please refrain from posting personal contact information (home and cell phone numbers, mailing or home addresses, personal email addresses, etc.) on social media sites. Remember that everything you post on social media is public and can live on forever.

Respect intellectual property laws

It is critical that you adhere to laws governing copyright and fair use of copyrighted material owned by others.

Stay on topic

It can be difficult for users to find information and/or to contribute to the discussion meaningfully when too much additional commentary unrelated to the topic of the posting is included.

Consider your audience

Remember to consider the diversity of your audience. You are free to discuss and disagree with others regarding topics relevant to the purpose of the social media platform, but please don’t use ethnic and racial slurs, hateful speech, personal attacks, abusive language, or other inappropriate/offensive content.

Starting a Social Media Site?

If you plan to launch your own site, remember some critical details.

Maintain, maintain, maintain

Critical to the success on social media is a persistent presence online ... Ensure you are prepared to maintain your site actively, and not just create it and walk away.

Register Your Site / Official Disclaimer

Your social media site should be registered with the NPS Office of University Communications, and contain a standard Navy disclaimer. Please contact the NPS Office of University Communications at pao@nps.edu for more information.