3 of the Best Social Media Style Guides

Here is a roundup of 3 Social Media Style Guides that are doing it right, so you don’t have to worry about where to start, and hit the ground running on improving strategy.

1. NYU Social Media Style Guide: Detailed and Updated


New York University’s Social Media Style Guide is by far the most up to date and detailed publicly available style guide. With everything clear and concise but detailed enough that anyone could pick up the PDF and start creating content for NYU official channels. It’s clearly important to have a separate guide for social media (opposed to simply lumping it in with your brand guide) as there are so many platform specific details. As platforms become more diverse, this will only grow in necessity.

Take a look at the NYU Social Media Style Guide vs. the PayPal Branding Guide

The PayPal Master Branding Guide is perfect for print media and general tone, but it never contains specifics for social media platforms. How will they use their Facebook and Twitter banners? How frequently do they post on every platform?

2. Coca-Cola Company Social Media Principles Guide

The Coca-Cola Company makes their Social Media Principles available publicly in 25 different languages on their website. Less detailed than NYU, their guide covers more so their approach to Social Media and general guidelines to all employees, with important reminders like “Remember the internet is permanent”

Give the Coca-Cola Company’s Social Media Principles Guide (English) a read.


3. Instagram Guideline: Mass Public Relations

As a social media platform, Instagram needs to make sure their image is clear and consistent, and their brand resources does exactly that. It details how you want the general public to be talking about Instagram and how to best represent their marketing materials (and even where to find them!) If you give other businesses the tools to interact and engage with your brand, chances are, they’ll want to.


