Choosing photos for social media

Guidelines for choosing a photo

The photo should be less than two years old.
Authenticity is very important. For example, if the photo is intended to depict current students, then the people in your photo should be students at UVic right now. Don’t use old photos of students who have graduated or photos of young-looking staff.
Smart phone photos are OK. It’s even better if a student took the photo.
Do not use Canva or Instagram filters to edit your photo.
Do not digitally add words or logos to your photo.
Stock photos are OK if they are illustrating concepts, objectives, etc. Never use stock photos of people.
Make sure you have the permission to use the photo.

Do not do a Google image search and take something. If you need a stock photo, get it from a website like Unsplash (free), Pixabay (free) or iStock ($).
Photos taken by UVic employees: You usually do not provide a photo credit to someone who took a photo as part of their employment at UVic.
Photos by everyone else: You should provide a photo credit. This includes student photos you found on Instagram, photos you found for free onstock photo sites, etc.
If you aren't sure who took a photo, consider how you know that you have permissions to use it.
If you have questions about copyright, please contact the extremely helpful Copyright Office.

This is probably OK for Twitter.
We tend not share these types of images on other social networks.
We recommend working with Strategic Marketing. They can design integrated marketing materials that work across all of UVic’s print and digital channels.

Instagram is a photo-driven medium. UVic’s Instagram account is our fastest growing social media channel. We have very high photo standards to help maintain the quality of our channel.
We never post graphics, posters or Digicaster slides as an Instagram feed post.
We do not recycle photos that we have posted previously.
We love photos taken by students and shared with their permission.

You do not need to resize photos in a program like Photosthop before you upload them.
Facebook, Instagram, Twitter will help you as you are uploading photos.
If you are using Hootsuite, you can use their Photo Editor to quick crop photos to platform-specific sizes.