Social Media

HFC Social Media Sites

The HFC Social Media presence currently consists of official channels: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. When staffing allows, we anticipate a strategic integration of additional audience-focused channels.

HFC Marketing and Communications provides Social Media Guidelines as direction and assistance for the HFC community in the use or creation of HFC-related social media.

The HFC social media presence is primarily maintained and moderated by Marketing and Communications. The primary purpose of the HFC social media presence is to actively promote and market the College to prospective and current students, influencers, and community members through the sharing of major highlights and news, event information, learning opportunities, cultural activities, and relevant engagement opportunities.

We actively encourage faculty, staff, students, and community members to engage with HFC social media in ways that advance the mission of the College.

Departmental social media channels / sites

Marketing and Communications is responsible for the HFC social media presence, and is available to work with departments to use existing social media channels to meet your needs.

When there is a defined, separate need and a documented content and audience engagement management plan, Marketing and Communications may grant permission to HFC departments or other units to create and manage their own social media channels, following the HFC Social Media Guidelines and the HFC Social Media and Cell Phone Use Policy. In such cases, the sponsoring department will be required to manage its own social media channel according to the detailed plan it submits for doing so.

The biggest risk, and most common failure, of social media channels is that they start off well but quickly languish due to a lack of a sustained plan for content and audience engagement. Having a stale, outdated, inactive social media channel is worse than having none at all. The College does not wish to fragment HFC audiences, nor do we wish to proliferate non-strategic social media channels. Therefore, any department wishing to host a social media channel must make a long-term commitment to keeping that channel active and up to date, including engaging your audience. This is a substantive, time-consuming responsibility and must be a permanent part of your regular defined work.

To request a departmental social media channel, you may submit the Social Media Channel Request Form and Management Plan. We recommend you contact communications@hfcc.edu to discuss your needs first.

All social media channels or sites that use the HFC name, logos, or identifiers are considered official and are an important representation of the HFC brand and reputation. Even those that are created and maintained by HFC departments or units will always remain accessible to Marketing and Communications, following the requirements listed in the Social Media Guidelines document.

Delete derogatory comments

Your department will own any approved social media channels, and should actively curate the content produced there. HFC is interested in generating useful, constructive engagement and interaction. While some negative comments are reasonable and acceptable, hateful commentary meant to demean a group of people or any individual is against our values and standards, and should be removed. Irrelevant or repetitive commentary may also be removed.

Allow users to contribute to the conversation

Actively engage questions with factual information and empathy. Delete user comments only when they are demeaning, derogatory, or irrelevant to the topic being discussed.

Create frequent engagement

  • Ask questions, post quizzes, ask for student opinions. Engagement requires interaction.
  • Include photos, comments, new information, and events. Update at least several times a week.

Promote awareness

  • There are many opportunities to promote awareness of social media throughout campus. Contact Communications for options.

  • Lead visitors back to the HFC home page when relevant. If there is an event, contact Communications and we will post to the home page events section. On your social media channel, note the event and include a link back to the HFC website for more details.

Feature multimedia

Consider using videos, photo albums, and audio to support your dialog.

Monitor your engagement

There are a number of traffic analyzing tools you can use to monitor engagement. Contact our office for more details.