Key Topics to Understand
Analytics
When it comes to social media there should be strategic reasoning behind the decisions that you are making. Analytics are built in to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The analytics are helpful to know when your users are on and is the best time to post. They are also helpful to find out what type of content is performing the best. Understanding analytics terms:
- Reach: How many people saw/ are now aware of the message.
- Engagement: How many people were engaged with the content by liking, commenting or sharing/retweeting it.
- Views: When dealing with videos the amount of people who viewed it are important.
- When it comes to social media performance, there is a balance between reach/views and engagement. You want as many people as possible to see the message, but you also want the people who do to engage with it.
Tools by Platform
Hashtags
If you do not have a hashtag for your account already, please email JU's Social Media and Multimedia Manager before you create one. Hashtags should be used strategically. If we are creating a personal hashtag, we need to make sure that it is already not used be a large amount of organizations. You also should use hashtags on Instagram so that your content can show up the in the featured/searched area. I am happy to help your group come up with a list of hashtags that works well for you. Here is an example of hashtags that was created for the aviation department.
Responding
Follow this protocol for social media comments.
Visuals
If you can include a visual, you should. The only social network where a visual is not required, but is desired, is Twitter.
- Photos work great. If you are posting on Facebook it is preferred to include 3 to 5 photos in your post or to make an album. Twitter and Instagram one photo works well.
- Videos also do well. Instagram will not let you upload a video that is more than 60 seconds. Facebook will not allow your video to show up in the news feed if people do not watch it the entire way through. It is unlikely that people will watch a video longer than three minutes when the average attention span of a human is 8 seconds. Sometimes we make video to complicated and think that it has to be an expensive production, it doesn't have to be. On social media the "fancy" videos don't do as well as the "real" videos sometimes. Capturing go pro footage, interviews on iPhones and Bommerangs do just as well, if not better sometimes.
- How to create a Bommerang for iPhone
- How to create a Bommerang for Android
- GoPro: Best of 2016
- How to Create Social Videos with your Phone
Infographics
There are website that can help you create infographics easily, you don't have to be an graphic designer. Canva has a great online infographic maker and it is the best price, free. Although a photo or video is preferred, if you don't have one, an infographic is a great way to show for example the job placement of your program or how many students pass the state certification exam.
