Social Media Best Practices: Promoting Your Involvement at the City Bar
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As a City Bar member, we encourage you to use social media to share your experiences at the City Bar, whether it be programs you attend, reports you’ve worked on or pro bono opportunities you’re participating in. The City Bar has a variety of social media accounts across multiple platforms that we utilize to promote the activities of our departments and members. Below are best practices we urge you to adopt when using social media to promote your involvement at the City Bar.
- Follow us! Make sure you are following the City Bar’s various accounts so you can stay up to date on developments and share our content when you are so inclined.
- Share your involvement at the City Bar. Are you attending an event at the City Bar? Did your committee just finalize a report supporting legislation? Did you have a meaningful experience volunteering with the Justice Center? Let people know about it! Take a picture, type up a short Facebook post or share your work with your followers.
- Tag the City Bar in your posts. In order to give members a true sense of what goes on at the City Bar, we need your help! We will share member posts through our accounts as appropriate. See below for further guidelines on appropriate content.
- Utilize relevant hashtags. Hashtags can be used across platforms and are a great way to increase the visibility of your post and contribute to a dialogue around an issue. The City Bar’s hashtag is #nycbarassociation and we often develop specific hashtags for events or advocacy campaigns that you can use. Make sure to research hashtags before including them in your posts to ensure they are related to content that is appropriate and matches the message of your post.
- Find unique opportunities to share your content. If you are promoting City Bar work such as a report, media item or event posting, look for opportunities to relate that content to what is going on outside the City Bar. This can include developments in the news, studies released, related events, etc. For example, if there is a news article that is related to a committee report, retweet the news article and link to the City Bar’s report, briefly explaining the connection.
- Increase the visibility of your post. Include visuals, tag other relevant organizations or individuals and link (ideally back to the City Bar website) whenever and wherever possible for higher visibility.
- Share the City Bar’s content. We post frequently to social media across all of our platforms. We encourage you to share those posts with your followers and increase the visibility of the City Bar’s work. The 44th St. eNews is posted weekly on our accounts and is a great resource to share with your followers!
- Be responsible. It is important that as a City Bar member and lawyer, you maintain your credibility. Any statements you make on social media in that role must be true and not misleading. When posting about your City Bar work, do not disclose private/internal committee deliberations or attribute positions to the City Bar before they are approved.
- Follow copyright and fair use laws. Always give proper credit. It is standard practice to quote a couple or a few sentences along with a link to others’ work, along with attribution. When in doubt as to the proprietary nature of material, do not use it. Recognize the potential professional and legal consequences of any failure to follow applicable laws governing the use of others’ materials.
- Avoid politics. The City Bar is a nonpartisan organization and must avoid the appearance of endorsing or supporting candidates for political office. While you are of course free to express your political beliefs on your personal social media accounts, please avoid tagging the City Bar in overtly political posts and be advised we will not share any political material.
- Exercise good judgment. Remember, what you post online will live online forever and can be seen and commented upon by anyone. Do not post anything intemperate or that would not reflect well on you and on the City Bar. Do not use anonymous screen names to comment on City Bar social media sites, and understand that anonymity cannot be assumed or maintained indefinitely on the web. Ultimately, remember that you are representing the City Bar as a member and make sure to comply with the City Bar’s Social Media Policy.
*Click here for a full list of all City Bar related social media accounts
Contacts:
Eric Friedman, Director of Communications, efriedman@nycbar.org
Eli Cohen, Communications Associate, ecohen@nycbar.org
Elizabeth Kocienda, Director of Advocacy, ekocienda@nycbar.org
