Communication Vitals

Communication Vitals are the key guidelines to healthy social media engagement with the Virginia Department of Health Office of Family Health Services.

Welcome to the Virginia Department of Health Office of Health Equity – JustHealth social media Communication Vitals. The purpose of these guidelines is to set clear expectations when engaging with VDHJustHealth using social media.

The Virginia Department of Health Office of Health Equity will listen, learn, share, and educate under the flagship brand @VDHJustHealth. VDHJustHealth engagement will provide the support, expertise, and resources to make Virginia the healthiest place in the nation.

VDHJustHealth will respond or acknowledge questions within 24-48 hours. Just like all Commonwealth of Virginia offices, our social media responses will follow the same holidays and observance schedule.

Next and perhaps the most important, we will respond and engage with all friends, followers, watchers, etc. – as long as your post does not contain profanity, spam, vulgarity, defamation, campaigns or services, off-topic comments, long embedded url strings, personal attacks, threats, unsupported accusation or sensitive information. To be clear, any of the forementioned posts will be deleted, and if warranted, will be forwarded to the appropriate authorities. As you can see, we take this seriously. In other words, use common sense and we’ll play nice.

Although this seems obvious, we don’t want anything to come back and harm you or us. When you are tweeting, posting, or viewing our material, you are no longer on an official Commonwealth of Virginia website. In order for us to engage and listen to you we have to “swim” in outlets beyond our firewalls and our control. Anything submitted via social media is susceptible to spam, hacking, and all of the other crazy things people can do with your information. If you post your personal information on our social media page, you accept the responsibility and risk.

Please do not post personal medical information or ask medical advice. Ask your doctor for medical and personal best practices to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Currently, we are using Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to engage. If it appears that “we” are engaging in outlets not previously mentioned – it is not us. Please do not engage or attempt to contact us on other social media outlets. We will let the world know when we expand our social media outreach.

And to our reporter friends, send all inquiries and comments through the traditional Communications Office touch points.

Finally, please remember that any communications made through social media outlets should not constitute a legal or official notice or comment. If you need to contact us, please use one of these appropriate outlets.

Be Well!