5 Best Practices for Higher Ed on Social Media

By Martha Gallagher, Marketing Specialist for Salesforce Marketing Cloud

In our latest webinar, we welcomed both Melissa Albers, Director of Social Media at Full Sail University, and Jocelyn Titone, Social Media Coordinator, Marketing and Communications, at Brock University to share their experiences implementing and using social media at their Universities.

Here’s a look at some best practices shared during the session.

1: It’s all about collaboration.
Are other teams at your school using social media? Don’t hesitate to connect with other departments – alumni relations, recruitment, athletics, and share the duties of engaging.

2: Know your audience.
Study the trends around your conversations – are students talking more in the evenings or weekends? Once Melissa and her team took time to understand when students were engaging, they realized that a lot of people were talking on Sundays – a day that hadn’t previously been paid much attention.

3: Don’t forget to be human.
Your school does some pretty important work – Universities and Colleges are charged with developing a new generation of leaders. That doesn’t mean it has to be all serious when you’re engaging online. Develop the human voice of your brand, and stick with it – your community will be more enthused and engaging when you’re sharing stories and cracking jokes.

4: Listen: It’s more than just Twitter.
While many universities and colleges will find a lot of relevant conversations taking place on Twitter, it’s important not to tune out on other channels. Jocelyn shared that while Brock primarily noticed engagement via Twitter, they’ve also found a lot of comments on forums, too.

5: Use your data for good.
Once you’ve started listening, it’s important to consistently reshape your strategy based on conversations you’re hearing. Do students comment more frequently on your YouTube videos than you expected? Maybe spend a little more time engaging there. Don’t be afraid to make changes or deviate from your original plan.

Missed our webinar? Check it out:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctJf-eGfPtg]