Tips for Writing on Social Media

a brown bird with a striped head sits on a branch
Social Flycatcher by Daniel Irons / Macaulay Library.

Social media offers the opportunity for the Lab to reach a wide range of people, benefit from word of mouth, and build brand reputation. By bringing our content directly to users’ feeds, social media has for more than a decade been one of the best ways to drive views of our content and make people aware of our work and values.

At the same time, social media presents a constantly shifting playing field, requires a lot of management, and can produce both good and bad reactions that spread rapidly. Use the following guidelines and best practices to help you manage social media effectively and efficiently.

Post Guidelines

How to Organize Share Text

Share text is the written content that appears in a post—often a lead-in to a link, video, or other piece of content you want people to click/tap on. People scroll rapidly through feeds, so share text needs to be short and easy to grasp.

  • Simplify sentences or reduce the amount of information you’re sharing in a single post—resist the urge to be comprehensive
  • Put the most important/exciting info up front. If advertising an event, briefly mention the date at the top of the post—don’t make people read past the break to get the key message
  • Recognize that most platforms truncate longer posts with a “See more” link after the first 125–400 characters (depending on device), meaning most users will not see all your text unless they click/tap
  • Avoid details irrelevant to reader, such as staff or contributor names or affiliations that are not essential for understanding the post
  • Use only one link in your post text. If a second link is relevant, add it as the first comment

Style Tips for Share Text

  • Don’t be afraid to lean into the fun—it’s okay to try out catchy or fun phrases, while retaining the Lab’s overall sense of tone and decorum.
  • Don’t alter the spelling or punctuation of words to be trendy. It’s fine to use shorter versions of some words, like “info” for “information.” But do not use numbers and letters in place of words, like “4” instead of “for” or “u” instead of “you”
  • Don’t anthropomorphize or give the impression that birds are cute playthings
  • Emojis are OK in social media posts when used with discretion
  • Tag partners or sponsors when relevant. Tag photographers and artists on Instagram when we use their work, if possible. Do not tag individual people on Facebook via their personal accounts
  • Remember that, just like luggage at the airport, many social media pages/accounts have names that look similar—double check you are tagging the right one
  • Especially on Instagram, use hashtags to help people find your content—short, commonly used words work best.
  • Before using a new hashtag, do a search to make sure that other content using that hashtag is appropriate for our audience
  • For multi-word hashtags, capitalize the first letter of each word (e.g., #BirdPhotography) to aid screen readers

Post Formats

  • Whenever possible, use a link preview rather than posting an image (this will help reach)
  • Use the Facebook sharing debugger to check how a link preview will look and to check how the image, headline, and excerpt displays
  • On many platforms, video content is favored by algorithms and will result in higher reach
  • To get the most reach, upload your video natively to the platform. Links out to YouTube will not see the same reach
  • Social media templates are available for Macaulay Library images

See additional social media tips from Cornell University.

Handling Comments

In general, three principles underpin our approach to comments:

  • People are free to express critical or argumentative opinions as long as they are polite
  • People often leave comments out of a desire to be heard rather than wanting to begin a discussion
  • When deciding whether to respond to a comment, the main consideration is whether we can be helpful

Often the best response to negative comments is no response. Comments that may require a response include: specific questions for which we have an answer; factual errors that can be politely corrected; or when a commenter points out an error or misstatement we have made.

Here are some guidelines on how and when to respond:

Take No Action

This is usually the best option for both positive and negative comments.

Also use with comments that:

  • have no specific complaint or question to address
  • ask rhetorical, provocative, or leading questions
  • make a point that we agree with (important to maintain a sense of fairness/balance in comments sections)

Respond to the Commenter
  • When there’s a specific question and we can point to a specific, helpful answer
  • If someone makes a correctable misstatement that is relevant to an ongoing discussion. This can be a judgment call. Example: commenters often make misstatements about the effects of wind turbines, but it’s not always worth correcting them
  • When we make a mistake and someone points it out, it’s polite to thank the commenter and let them know we’ve fixed it

Hide/Delete the Post

Hidden posts typically remain visible to the commenter and their network, so it’s a way of shielding the wider audience without aggravating the situation. Use it with comments that are:

  • Rude, offensive, or personally attacking. Sometimes people will comment in support of the Lab but use foul language or personal attacks, and these should also be hidden/deleted/blocked
  • Clearly written in bad faith
  • Multiple copies of a comment posted in the same thread
  • Spam or scammy posts (see “Block the User”)

Ban or Block the User

Once you block a user, they will not be able to continue commenting or posting on the channel. This is a severe action, but should absolutely be used with abusive posters and spammers/scammers. Use it when commenters are:

  • Abusive. When rudeness tips over into abuse, foul language, or threats, block the user
  • Using hate speech
  • Repetitive. If a commenter posts the same comment multiple times in a row or on multiple posts on our feed, you can block them instead of hiding each individual post
  • Spam. For bots or throwaway accounts that post unrelated/weird/gross material, it’s a three-step process: first, report the comment as spam. Then block the user and hide the comment. Do this on the first occurrence (no warnings or second chances)
  • Scams. Comments and comment replies that ask another user to friend them or otherwise reach out should be reported and then blocked and hidden. Do this on the first occurrence
  • Self promotion. Commenters that promote an unrelated business or cause should be blocked
Seek Advice/Help

If you ever need advice or a second opinion on how to deal with comments, please contact Hugh Powell (hdp8).

Accessibility on Social Media

Image Descriptions and Alt Text

When writing on social media be sure to follow the guidelines for writing image descriptions and alt text.

Hashtags

Write hashtags in CamelCase (capitalize each word) so that screen readers can parse and pronounce them correctly. For example: #DisabilityRights #ParticipatoryScience #BringBirdsBack.

Link Sharing

Links with photo previews automatically have alt text associated with them. The alt text is often the title of the article. You should still provide an image description of the link preview in the body of the post to help users get an idea of what’s in the photo. See the guidelines for writing image descriptions and alt text for more information.

To see what image will show in a link preview for X/Twitter paste the url in at the X/Twitter card validator and for Facebook paste the url in the Facebook debugger tool.

Videos

When uploading video that contains voiceover or dialog, provide an .srt file to support closed captions. Closed captioning appears overlaid with video, allowing viewers to access audio information visually. Like image descriptions, including closed captioning makes your content more accessible to your entire audience. See the Web Accessibility Initiative for more examples on how to increase video accessibility.

Macaulay Image Templates

A streaky brown bird with a yellow chest opens its bill to sing. Text on image: Chihuahuan Meadowlark, Sturnella lilianae, © Cecilia Riley / Macaulay Library, Cornell Lab.]
Whenever possible, use this image template to share Macaulay Library assets on social media.

When sharing Macaulay images on social media, in most cases it’s best to use an image template to facilitate a consistent treatment across accounts and platforms, and to ensure that crediting travels with images wherever they are shared.

For 1:1 aspect ratio images, use this Figma template. To save an editable copy of this template, click the “Ad Templates” dropdown at the top center and choose “Duplicate to Your Drafts.” Add your image, resize, and then add the species common name, scientific name, and credit information in the text bar below. Export and share.

For 9:16 aspect ratio images, contact Katherine Welch who can share a Photoshop version of the template.

Note that these templates still require the use of an image description that provides the text in an accessible format (see Accessibility: Image Descriptions and Alt Text, above).