The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) has standards for its social media, including blogs, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, X (formerly known as Twitter), Vimeo, and YouTube. If you have questions about EERE social media, contact the EERE social media team.
Learn more about DOE’s social media guidance and social media policies.
Best Practices for Social Media Content
Posting on social media is more than just about placing important content online. There are certain best practices for targeting audiences and structuring your content to garner engagement or are more likely to be chosen by social media algorithms.
EERE staff are encouraged to work with your technology office communications team and your pillar’s DAS communications lead to prioritize content and submit topic suggestions.
If you are submitting draft social media content, your copy should:
- Clearly connect to a Why Energy Innovation Matters theme.
- Use first person (we/our) as the subject instead of using office or department names.
- Include one to two relevant hashtags per post, integrated within the post text if possible.
- Including one or two relevant emoji in posts may also be beneficial, but not for all topics or platforms. Work with your social and communications leads to determine what types of content may benefit.
- Tag relevant partner organizations to help amplify engagement. Tagging individuals is not recommended unless they are high profile, known accounts, such as the Secretary of Energy.
- It is important to note that organizations can have different handles, or names, on different platforms, so double check any accounts you want to tag. For example, NREL's X account is @nrel, while its Instagram account is @nationalrenewableenergylab
- Use relevant visuals or videos with posts, instead of using the autogenerated image. Remember that all images we use for social media must be Section 508 compliant and accessible, including using alt text.
- Amplify relevant content from other established government brands.
Where applicable, photos and videos uploaded to social media should use DOE's updated branding and templates. Do not use unapproved or older DOE/EERE logos in photos or videos.
EERE staff are welcome to submit photos to the U.S. Department of Energy's Flickr account. Contact your communications lead if you have images to post on Flickr.
EERE offices are welcome to add videos to the DOE Vimeo channel.
All videos must follow EERE's video requirements. Before beginning to produce a video, please consult with your office's communications lead, who will submit your idea for review via the EERE Policy Calendar. You can begin producing the video after receiving approval from EERE Communications.
EERE offices are welcome to post videos on the DOE YouTube channel. Before beginning to produce a video, please consult with your office’s communications lead, who will submit your idea for review via the EERE Policy Calendar. You can begin producing the video after receiving approval from EERE Communications.
If you want your video posted on DOE's YouTube channel, follow the process on the Video page.
EERE staff are encouraged to submit content topic ideas for the EERE Facebook account after first coordinating with their office's communications lead, who will work directly with EERE Communications.
EERE's Facebook account will post a maximum of twice per day. Based on analytics research, types of posts that are ideal for EERE's Facebook audience include:
As Facebook users largely access the site through mobile devices, content should be optimized for mobile viewing. This may include creating vertically aligned videos and the use of mobile-friendly images.
EERE staff are encouraged to submit content topic ideas for EERE's LinkedIn account after first coordinating with their office's communications lead, who will work directly with EERE Communications.
EERE's main LinkedIn account will post no more than four times per week. Based on analytics research, types of posts that are ideal for EERE's LinkedIn audience include:
EERE staff are encouraged to submit content topic ideas for DOE's X account after first coordinating with their office's communications lead, who will work directly with EERE Communications.
Based on analytics research, types of posts that are ideal for EERE's audience include:
Twitter posts for non-verified accounts are limited to 280 characters, including links (which take up 23 characters, regardless of URL length).
Additional branding information, including assets, can be found on X's support site.