Social Media Standards
If you manage an official USF social media venue on behalf of your school, college, institute, division, office, department, or another academic or administrative unit, you must use the University of San Francisco logo to brand the venue. You can only include the USF logo on your social media venue if you:
- Have completed a USF social media training course. Contact social@usfca.edu for information.
- Represent a unit that has a presence on the USF website and link back to that web presence from your social media venue.
- Include contact information in the biography section with an email of the manager. This may be an alias email (i.e. usfbaseball@usfca.edu).
- Manage your social media venue in line with the standards and requirements presented at your official USF social media training.
If you do not meet the criteria listed above, you cannot use the USF logo or any of its elements to brand your social media venue. However, you can use images of the USF campus, or images of activities on campus, and the social media venue name and/or description of the social media venue can be used to connect your venue with the university.
For official accounts, please read the instructions below for branding of venues on the most popular platforms. Just right-click the images and choose "save image" to download the images for your social media site. If you have any questions or need advice on setting up your social media venue, please contact social@usfca.edu.
Facebook Pages
The timeline design of brand pages includes a cover photo that can be used by official USF pages to feature our great university. Official USF Facebook pages may feature this profile picture – the golden USF symbol on a green background. Pages may differentiate themselves through their covers and through their page names. Please spell out “University of San Francisco” within the page and include the abbreviation "(USF)" in the name of the page or group to improve search results. *Note that only official pages may use the USF symbol or any other element of the logo in their profile pictures. The use of USF brand identity elements in the profile picture is not allowed for personal Facebook accounts or non-official USF Facebook pages.
Profile Picture Format: 180 x 180 px.
The profile picture of official USF Facebook pages may feature the golden symbol on a green background.
Cover Picture Format: Displays at 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall on computers and 640 pixels wide by 360 pixels tall on smartphones.
The cover picture provides plenty of space to feature our beautiful university, as well as adding branding and unit distinction. For the convenience of official USF social media administrators, the covers below are available to use. Please contact the Office of Marketing Communications at social@usfca.edu for special image requests, or for adding the logo with unit distinction to the cover picture.
Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr
The profile picture of official USF accounts on Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr may feature the golden symbol on green background. If possible, use usfca as part of the username instead of USF to avoid confusion with other universities using the same abbreviation. For the name of the account, include "University of San Francisco (USF)" to clearly differentiate your office or department from other universities. Use the bio to provide a full description and include a link back to your web presence on the USF Website and contact email of the manager.
The profile picture of your LinkedIn group offers very limited space to showcase the university identity. On the other hand, the group name itself is a clearly visible distinction for the name and purposes of your group. That is why official USF groups on LinkedIn use profile pictures showing the centered symbol with the full university name. Further unit distinction is achieved by the name of the group. Groups that are not (yet) official cannot use the University of San Francisco logo as their profile picture.
Group Logo Format: Will be visible in formats up to 100 x 60 px (resized to fit)
Small Logo: Will be visible in formats up to 60 x 30 px
Tip: With the USF University page, LinkedIn has turned into a great tool to identify USF alumni who might be valuable contacts for your office or department.
The profile picture, profile description, and the Twitter page customization, offer room for university identity and distinctions, whereas the Twitter “handle” is short. Official USF accounts on Twitter use the profile picture and the account description to create a clearly visible identity.
Special Twitter Profile Requirements
- Include the abbreviation USF in the “Name” field (20 characters) to improve search results.
- In the bio include the full university name to distinguish from other universities that use the same abbreviation.
- Use the 160 characters of the bio to describe the account.
- Use the “Web” field in your profile to link back to your page on the USF website and include the full university name to distinguish from other universities that use the same abbreviation.
Profile Picture Format: 400 x 400 px width (displays 200 x 200 px)
Only the official USF account @usfca on Twitter uses the profile picture with the full university name. Official USF accounts that have distinctions use the following vertical lockup, including the monogram, the symbol, and the distinction (in this case School of Law):
If you have an official USF Twitter account but you do not have a distinction for the USF administrative unit that you represent on Twitter, you can use the following profile picture, and let the name and bio of your Twitter account explain what administrative unit you represent.
Twitter account customization
If you use green and gold for the colors on your Twitter home page, make sure to use the appropriate USF green (Hex# FDBB30) and gold (Hex# 00543C) colors. If you prefer a background image, the use of an image of campus or campus activity is recommended. Make sure that you have the copyright to use the image. You can look through the official University of San Francisco Flickr photo gallery to find pictures of the USF campus that are available for use.
Google+
Profile Picture Format: 250 x 250 px (Recommended)
Though you upload your image in a square format it’s going to render on your page as a circle, so be wary you don’t choose a photo that cuts out the good stuff!
Image Guidelines
- Minimum 250 x 250 pixels.
- Recommended to use larger photos.
- Maximum file size 100 MB.
- JPG, GIF or PNG.
Profile Picture Format: 1,080 x 608 px
The Google+ cover image is the biggest photo on your page, so this is an opportunity to showcase your school and/or department.
Image Guidelines
- Recommended 1,080 x 608 pixels.
- Minimum 480 x 270 pixels.
- Maximum 2,120 x 1,192 pixels.
flickr
For the photo-sharing site flickr, an official USF account for your office or department should use the golden symbol on white or green background. The name of the account should include "University of San Francisco (USF)". Include a link back to your web pages on the USF Website in the description. Remember to tag your photos #USFCA.
YouTube
YouTube channel visual customization
Channel avatar: 100 x 100 px squared format icon that displays next to the channel name. Official USF YouTube channels use the University of San Francisco logo (below) as their avatar. In combination with a channel name that includes the full university name, the channel will be clearly branded as official and still be distinct through the unique page name.
Channel cover photo: 2,560 x 1,440 px
A background image showing the USF campus or activities on campus can be used instead of a one-color background. See the official USF image gallery on Flickr for examples of available images.
Themes and Colors:
USF Gold is Hex #FDBB30
USF Green is Hex #00543C
USF Gray is Hex #919194
USF White is Hex #FFFFFF
YouTube video branding
Videos produced by the University of San Francisco need to have start and/or end slide(s) that show the USF logo. Please contact multimedia@usfca.edu to request templates.