CDC Social Media Tools, Guidelines & Best Practices
The use of social media tools is a powerful channel to reach target audiences with strategic, effective, and user-centric health interventions. To assist in the planning, development and implementation of social media activities, the following guidelines have been developed to provide critical information on lessons learned, best practices, clearance information and security requirements. Although these guidelines have been developed for the use of these channels at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), they may be useful materials for other federal, state, and local agencies as well as private organizations to reference when developing social media tools.

CDC’s Guide to Writing for Social Media was written to provide guidance and share the lessons learned in more than three years of creating social media messages in CDC health communication campaigns, activities, and emergency response efforts.
- Social Media Policy pdf icon[1.40 MB, 10 pages] [Revised February 2015]
- Facebook Guide [Revised May 2012]
- Twitter Guide [Revised February 2012]
- Social Media Security Mitigations pdf icon[156 KB, 14 pages] – Additional reference detailing CDC-specific security information related to social media is included in the following document developed in conjunction with the Office of Chief Information Security Officer (OCISO).
- Social Media Toolkit pdf icon[2.5 MB, 59 Pages]
- Guidelines for Public Comments
- CDC Digital Media Channel Privacy Policy Notice