This social media policy is intended for any individual or group who has been appointed either permanently or temporarily as a Contributor to the content on any of MICA’s flagship or affiliate communications channels or social media accounts.

Please note that this policy is not intended to cover personal employee use of social media. However, the use of social media by employees with a distinguished MICA affiliation remains subject to MICA policy governing employee conduct in the Employee Handbook. An employee’s personal use of social media is not on behalf of MICA. MICA will not be responsible for any liability that results from postings on personal social media accounts.

Definition of the terms: Contributor, Flagship Account, and Affiliate Account

Contributor: A contributor is a designated spokesperson on behalf of the institution, who is authorized by MICA to develop, share, manage, or otherwise contribute to the publishing of content on MICA’s flagship or affiliate accounts.  

A contributor can be authorized to do one or all of the following:

• Create the content to publish a social post
• Write the content that supports a social post
• Comment only on instagram takeover campaign comments via their personal social account

A contributor is not authorized to:

• Respond to and/or send private messages on specified accounts under the MICA account
• Comment on posts as MICA on any other non-MICA account
• Publish content without prior approval from Social Media team in the Strategic Communications office

Examples of publishing content can include but is not limited to:

• Creating content that supports marketing campaigns such as student, faculty, and/or alumni spotlights
• User-generated content that supports highlighting the MICA student experience

Examples of contributors include: 

A third-party vendor who manages an affiliate account, channel managers, guest account managers, student, faculty, and staff guest contributors, and channel “takeover” guests.

Students who are also contributors must also adhere to the Student Conduct policy.

Flagship Account

A MICA officially supported social media/communication account that has been created—and is being managed by—the Office of Strategic Communications and solely bearing the College’s full name or acronym. The purpose of a MICA flagship account is to establish MICAs brand and position in the digital landscape of higher education, and to represent the authentic voice of MICA. 

MICA’s flagship accounts:

Instagram: @marylandinstitutecollegeofart

Facebook: @mica.edu

X: @mica

YouTube: @MarylandInstituteCollegeofArt

TikTok: @MICAmade

LinkedIn: @Maryland Institute College of Art

WeChat: @micaedu

Threads: @marylandinstitutecollegeofart

Affiliate Account:

An affiliate account is any social media account that represents an officially recognized entity within the College’s organizational structure. The purpose of an Affiliate Account is to provide a more intimate and inside view of what MICA is. 

Examples of Affiliate Accounts include, but are not limited to: 

department, division, or program major/minor accounts

Affiliate accounts must:

• Be owned/managed by a current MICA employee or an official vendor
• Have account access connected to a mica.edu email (not a personal email)
• Have shared account access with Strategic Communications staff
• Be documented via a “validation” process, which includes establishing the purpose, goals, content disposition, management personnel, moderation plan, and succession plan for the account