Getting the Word Out

Launch and Connect with Social Media

Launch and Connect with Social Media

Social media is an easy and effective way for your department, program, and center to build community, communicate accomplishments, and reach larger audiences. Sharing event photos and news can help build the spirit of community in your unit. Sharing achievements by students and faculty can build pride and spread your reputation.

Audiences outside your department include other units across the school and university and faculty as well as peer institutions and prospective students, alumni, and the general public.

Sharing fun photos and news with your followers is only part of what makes a social network work--the other half is following, liking, and commenting on other accounts. Following those accounts will help build your audience and give you ideas for managing your own accounts.

We want you to do the same! We strongly encourage all units who have not done so to consider building a social media program. We can help you set up the account, find and develop the right content, and manage the page.

Create your account

The first and foremost web presence for your unit is your official website. Keeping it up-to-date with images and news is necessary to manage your virtual reputation and provides a great way to launch your social media presence.

First, build your social media accounts from the content and images of your website.

You have an image ready to be your social media icon: the welcome square on your homepage.

Just as this image creates continuity for your website across devices, it can be an image of continuity across platforms.

This icon will become an enduring symbol of your unique brand and image.

For Facebook and Twitter, you can share a url from your website directly in your posts. If you have an image on the webpage, it should load with the item. When this thumbnail image and text is showing, you can delete the url. remember to add some original text to the post. It can be as short as: Check it out! or can include a quote from the article or a longer description. Play around and have fun!

Build a network

Follow other accounts: follow @RutgersSAS and other Rutgers units including Rutgers–New Brunswick and student groups; "like" all the departments, programs, and centers in your division; follow fellow departments at peer institutions; follow the professional associations for your field.

Check your newsfeed and those you are following and like, comment on, and share appropriate posts.

Let us know about your account

We want to know about your accounts so we can follow, like, and share what you are doing!

Send information about your account and who is managing it to identity@sas.rutgers.edu

We can also be administrators of your social media and provide backup management when necessary.

Follow @RutgersSAS on Social Media!

Show What You Tell With Photography

Show What You Tell With Photography

Photographs visually portray the real Rutgers. When representing your unit, always use photos of actual students, faculty, and staff engaged in their work and activities. Because it is so important to accurately reflect our diverse student body and have interesting and compelling images on your websites, we provide photography services to you whenever possible.

We can take photos for you

Our staff are available to take photos of your event, location, and community, including staged action shots in labs and classrooms or simple head shots.

Contact us to arrange for up to an hour of photography: identity@sas.rutgers.edu

You can take your own photos

At a large public event, always let attendees know you will be taking photos to share on the web and through social media.

For smaller events and photos that focus on fewer individuals that will be used to tell a story or represent your department, have the subjects sign a photo release form and scan and save with the photos. This protects you and the university from using photos without permission and also identifies who is in the photo and gives you the option of easily following up for more information.

Model release forms must be obtained from people you are photographing or videotaping. These forms are required in order to grant an entity permission to use the subject's image in any medium for educational, promotional, advertising, or other purposes. For public events, releases generally are not required; it is strongly encouraged, however, that model releases are signed by all subjects if at all possible. One form is specifically for minors and must be completed by a parent or guardian.

Download the required university photo release forms.

Event photography tips

Remember your goals for photographing the event:

• Photos to share on social of a successful event and a good time had by all!
• Your own photos for your website: frame images you can crop to 1x3, 1x2, and square.

Try to capture three types of photos: ACTION, CANDID, and POSED

While everyone wants photos of the action and candid shots, always remember to take posed shots, too!

FRAME the PHOTO

1. Fill the frame for all types of shots

Fill the frame with your subjects, make that expression prominent, and get rid of the background that doesn’t add to the moment.

Make the background work for you: Do you have school or department banner on display? Place it where it will be in photos taken of the event.

ACTION: when you are photographing structured activities from the sidelines

2. During the structured part of an event, set up the shot and wait for the expressions.

Good event photography is all about expressions.

Set up a shot and wait for someone to smile or react.to take a good photograph of people you need good expressions.

For example, at a symposium, position yourself to the side so you can get all the speakers at the table in the frame, then wait for that moment of laughter and when the speaker looks toward you.

Even the most attentive listeners can look bored or distracted in a photo. Try to get the focus on someone speaking or laughing. Take a photo of the speaker over or between the backs of heads of listeners whose faces would look blank.

CANDID AND POSED: when you, guests, and participants are casually interacting

4. Capture a variety of candid photographs. Don’t settle for stiff shots!

Uncomfortable people are the bane of every event photographer’s existence.

If everyone were outgoing and extroverted, the job would be so much easier, but that’s just not the reality, and your job is to help make people comfortable.

Being behind the camera gives you power to be outgoing and direct people to create great photos! People know you have a job to do and expect you to do it.

So, get in the middle, smile, and say hi to people. If you are getting ready to take their photo, you can talk to them! Smile, ask them how their day is going and just engage them in any way you can.

Never tell them they look uncomfortable! Instead, compliment them.

The more comfortable you seem the more comfortable your subjects will be. Even if you are sweating on the inside, try to smile and look comfortable on the outside.

5. Capture a variety of posed photographs

Please remember to always take posed photographs from events that you photograph.

Candid are great, but they can be hard to frame, and at a work event people are often standing too far apart to look engaged in a photo.

To get a nicely framed group photo, get people to move closer, and smile.

Posing people doesn’t have to be scary.

We already spoke about getting people to stop being stiff, but there are a couple of tips that will help to make any posed photo much better.

Simple posing tips

• Ask people to tilt their body to the side to make sure they look slimmer.
• Pay attention to people’s arms and hands (if they look stiff ask them to hold their hands together in a comfortable way, to place their arm on something, to put their hands in their pockets, or to cross their arms).
• Pay attention for people who are looking down too much, creating that double chin look.
• Ask the group to look at each other instead of the camera for a couple of shots.
• Try to occasionally think of a funny pose to do to break up a tense portrait.

Finally, have fun! Take lots of photos! And then get ready to crop and edit for print and web! 

Adapted from Best Shots, Photographer James Maher, December 10, 2019

Creating and Publishing Videos

Creating and Publishing Videos

In this era of remote learning and reliance on electronic communication with our students, faculty, and staff, there is a greater reliance on video.

The Rutgers video policy and SAS practices, detailed below, requires the Rutgers logo with SAS signature be included in all videos. The outro slide below can be downloaded and added to the end of your videos.

This policy and practice ensures that public videos represent your unit and the school and university in a unified way and reflect well on our reputation.

The Office of Communications can help with video production. We also have a Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences YouTube channel where we can post your videos. We can also assist with creating YouTube channels for your unit if you anticipate having a large volume of video. You can also refer to our do-it-yourself instructions.

Visit the SAS YouTube channel to see what videos we share and as a model of a branded channel.

Please be in touch about projects you are working on or would like to produce, so we can assist with the development and review for brand management.

Rutgers visual identity policy, SAS practice, and permissions for videos

The video standards apply to all forms of video including but not limited to videos of visiting speakers, lectures, promotional videos, television commercials, Jumbotrons, low-definition website videos, and high-definition documentaries.

The Rutgers logotype with the SAS signature must appear prominently at or near the opening or closing of a video made by or for a unit in SAS.

It is also a good idea to have a title slide that includes the name of the program and/or department.

Obtain permissions from speakers, interviewees, and featured guests before filming and posting using this form: https://communications.rutgers.edu/services-resources/model-release-and-hipaa-authorization-forms

Below are a few examples of properly branded video introduction slides

 

 

The Rutgers University-New Brunswick unit name must also appear somewhere during the video. The easiest way to meet this standard is to fade the following slide in and out at the very end of your video:

 

Save the image above for use in your videos.

Rutgers webpage for reference: https://communications.rutgers.edu/brand-policies/visual-identity/guidelines-use

For technical questions and assistance with adding the slide or posting videos to the SAS Youtube channel, please contact Ian DeFalco, idefalco@sas.rutgers.edu, in the Office of Communications.

News Digest: Share Your Upcoming Events and Breaking News

News Digest: Share Your Upcoming Events and Breaking News

Use the News Digest Manager to enter events in the School of Arts and Sciences News Digest Upcoming Events!

A weekly email announcement of events and activities sponsored by units in the School of Arts and Sciences and of particular interest or benefit to Arts and Sciences faculty and staff, Upcoming Events! is published every Thursday during the fall and spring semesters.

Events submitted by the Friday before will be considered for inclusion in the next edition.

Due to the heavy volume of requests and the space constraints, there will be only one posting for each event.

Submissions should include the date, time, location, contact information, and a brief description of the event.

Since we cannot publish flyers or send attachments, we encourage you to post information about your event on your website and submit the link to be included in the message.

To submit an announcement for consideration, please use the SAS News Digest Manager.

If you have any questions about submitting an announcement for consideration or completion of the online form, contact newsmanager@sas.rutgers.edu.

This service can be accessed only by full-time faculty and staff in the School of Arts and Sciences. We cannot post personal items, information for student-sponsored events, or student organization announcements.

Faculty Achievement Report

Faculty Achievement Report

Academic units within Rutgers University are required to submit reports of faculty honors, achievements, and publications to the office of the Vice President of Academic Affairs.

The Vice President of Academic Affairs uses the information from the School of Arts and Sciences Faculty Achievement Report to publicize the strengths and academic achievements of Rutgers University in speeches, promotional materials, and reports, and on the website. The report gives Arts and Sciences and departments the opportunity to communicate to the central administration the outstanding work done across the School.

Departmental Faculty Achievement Reports are due to the Executive Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences in May and December of each year.

We currently use a Sakai site to systematize departmental reporting and streamline the process of compiling the report. Communications staff post dates on the Sakai site and send reminders to departments of upcoming due dates. Each chair and a designated assistant have access to the Sakai site and the template for the report.

A template for departmental use is posted on the Sakai website. Please rename the template with the name of your department and the date before uploading. Review the sample entries and use them to format the information you add to the template. If you cut and paste information from cvs or websites, please check the formatting before submitting. Please include dates for publications and talks and wait until works are published and talks have been given before including them on the list. Remember, there is always another report coming!

Please continue to send exciting news directly to the Dean's Office at sasexecdean@sas.rutgers.edu and kdonaldson@sas.rutgers.edu.

Contact Us with Story Ideas and Communications and Marketing Questions

Contact Us with Story Ideas and Communications and Marketing Questions

Please reach out to our office with story ideas for features and videos, information about upcoming events, questions about launching social media, any questions regarding graphic design and successful communications practices: identity@sas.rutgers.edu

We look forward to working with you and getting the word out!