Best Practices for Social Media Site Managers
When it comes to managing social media, there’s no one size fits all approach.
That’s precisely why we provide best practices for Adelphi’s social media managers—to assist you in building your following and making connections.
- Consider messages, audiences, goals and your strategy for keeping information timely.
- Some audiences may be on one social media platform and not another, and some sites provide more flexibility than others. It is time-consuming to maintain more than one social media site at a time so choose carefully.
- Social Media does not require you to be on all platforms! It is best to choose the one best suited to you and your program or department.
- Review our Before Getting Started guide for some good questions to ask yourself before getting started. Creating a content calendar can also help organize postings and ensure that you won’t forget to post new content.
When possible, identify an appointed employee or student, responsible for social media content and monitoring. If responsibility is not assigned, new content might not be posted, and the site will wither and die. As your site grows, you will also need someone familiar with the site to attest what is and isn’t working for your audience. Make sure that your account has two faculty/staff members with access at all times.
If one account administrator is leaving the University, ensure that their administration access is passed on to another faculty/staff member and that UCOMM is notified.
A common misconception about social media is that if you build a site, people will automatically come. When you launch, announce it through your traditional channels: email, newsletter, and website. Fill your new site with content, so your site doesn’t feel empty.
Oftentimes, people don’t want to be the first to break the ice, so try and recruit friends or co-workers to stimulate the discussion in the comment section.
Social media is meant for two-way communication. You do not want to be a robot that only spits out content and does not reciprocate communication. Social media is social, so it is important to be engaging and responsive. People Google or read the news to get information, but people visit social media sites to interact with other people. Welcome new audience members, respond to comments or follow up a posting with a question about the content. Engaging with your members will also make your site more valuable to them and keep them coming back.
Most people who maintain social media sites welcome comments—it builds credibility and community.
Consider sharing Adelphi’s social media policy to let audience members know what is and isn’t appropriate. On some social media platforms, you can set your site so that you can review and approve comments before they appear. This allows you to respond in a timely way. It also allows you to delete spam comments and to block any individuals who repeatedly post offensive comments.
Review our social media policy for best practices when it comes to comments. If you are concerned about a comment, reach out to UCOMM and they can advise best next steps or connect you to the appropriate office to assist. It is best to screenshot a comment before deleting it.
Make use of analytics to evaluate posting activity and interaction within a social media site. Many social media platforms have built-in analytics for pages. This tool helps you to refine your strategy and better understand your audience’s preferences and behaviors.
To determine the results you would like to measure, keep in mind what your goals for the platforms are. If you are looking to build awareness, reach and impressions would be important to you. If you are looking to build a community, comments and reactions are good to measure, along with follower count.
If you are a social media administrator for an Adelphi account, you can also reach out to your fellow social media administrators at Adelphi to collaborate or tag one another and further connect our community.
We encourage all social media administrators to connect through the Social Media Users Group (SMUG) as well. If you would like to join in our meetings, please contact social@adelphi.edu.
Social media does best when there is an image attached. We recommend posting with photos whenever possible. You can check out our Photo Collections for possible photos, or the photo guidelines on the brand website for best practices when taking photos.
You should also keep in mind the platform you are posting on. It is important to post in ways that would bring success on those platforms. For example, on Instagram stories, posting carousels (multiple photos) are more likely to gain likes and engagement than single photos.
There is no right or wrong answer to how many times you should post a week on social media. However, we require Adelphi social media accounts to post at least once a month to maintain an active presence.
When creating your content, consider what you have. Do you have a monthly newsletter that goes out with stories? Are your faculty members, staff or students featured in an article at adelphi.edu/news? Is your website updated with interesting information your community might want to know? Make use of the stories you have!
Events are also a great source of photos and content. Make sure you have gotten Photo Releases from all who are featured before posting. You can also reach out to members of your community to showcase small profiles. Take stock of what you have available to you.