Social media platforms provide a powerful opportunity to promote the UW School of Medicine and Public Health and the broader UW–Madison brand. These platforms offer an immediate and highly visible way to connect with key audiences and for stakeholders to engage with our institution.
However, managing official university social media accounts comes with both opportunities and challenges. It is important to have a content strategy, and an understanding of the target audience, account goals, and dedicated time set aside for posting. It is important that account managers and all members of the UWSMPH community are familiar with the Institutional Social Media Use Policy and the Personal Social Media Use Policy to ensure compliant, responsible and effective communication.
Before creating a new social media account, identify your target audience and develop a strategic content plan. Additionally, all new school-affiliated accounts must be registered in the social registry to maintain consistency and support within UWSMPH’s communication framework.
UW School of Medicine and Public Health avatar
The Office of Strategic Communications offers a offers a consistent look for UW School of Medicine and Public Health social media avatars for use with social media accounts that represent units within our school such as departments, institutes, centers, and programs. This avatar, used in conjunction with your account name and bio works together to help users immediately identify that your content relates to the school and UW–Madison. Consistency is important to aid brand recognition. We welcome your partnership in this effort.This avatar may be used by academic and clinical departments, divisions, units, and institutes associated with the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. It is visually linked to the new avatar used by the main @UWSMPH social accounts.
The new avatar is free of text, for both readability and accessibility reasons. We ask that no alterations are made to the new avatar.
As a best practice, avoid placing text on images or graphics, especially when used at a small scale.
Review and update your profile
To reflect best practices for institutional social media profiles, it is recommended that you review your account profile and ensure you are audience-focused in your description. Include your campus unit’s full name. Clearly indicate affiliation with UW School of Medicine and Public Health and UW–Madison. If your unit’s full name exceeds the word count allowed for profile names, consider using a commonly understood abbreviation (e.g., Dept. for Department, UW for UW–Madison) and/or writing out the full name in the profile bio.
Customizations
If you wish to recognize special occasions on your profile (such as program anniversaries or heritage months), we recommend using the profile banner image rather than altering the avatar. You can change your banner image as often as you’d like. Changing the avatar risks weakening a clear connection to the institution and can erode user brand recognition.
Social media policies
As private individuals or as programs that use social media, we must take care not to violate FERPA and HIPAA patient privacy rules as well as institutional policies and guidance.
Refer to the following resources:
- Personal Social Media Use Policy
- Institutional Social Media Use Policy
- UW–Madison social media guidelines
- UW Health social media policy (U-Connect access required)
- Inclusive Communications Guide
You may also want to familiarize yourself with the UW School of Medicine and Public Health Social Media Statement
Our Accounts
Please follow, engage and tag the primary social media accounts for the UW School of Medicine and Public Health:
