SOCIAL MEDIA 101 & BEST PRACTICES

AJA J WILLIAMS

WEB CONTENT MANAGER

So … What is social media?

The Nitty Gritty

Facebook can be used to share photos, videos, ideas/thoughts, etc. with friends/followers.

“I like doughnuts”

According to Facebook:

“Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open & connected. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world and to share and express what matters to them.”

Pros

No character limit

Huge audiences

Business Insider: Top network for women & teens

Pew: Remains “home base” for users

Great resource for engagement

Cons

Getting harder & harder to grow reach

Pay to play

All of your thoughts, dreams & hopes in 140 characters.

I like #doughnuts

Twitter’s goal:

To give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly without barriers

Pros

Makes you think outside the box

No limit of tweeting

More tweets = more followers

Business Insider: Men = Heavy Tweeters

Cons

140 characters

Engagement gets tough

Lots of people tweet

Catching on to pay to play

Take a photo and share it.

Here’s a photo of my #donut.

From Instagram:

“Instagram is a fun and quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo with your mobile phone, then choose a filter to transform the image into a memory to keep around forever.”

Pros

It’s a cool way to promote & share photos/images

Great for campaigns/contests

Via BusinessInsider: Instagram is seen as prestigious among teens/young users

Nice way to tie in other social media platforms

Cons

Really only good on mobile/tablet platform

If linked on Twitter, could cut off tweets so still 140 characters

Great social media tool for professionals & networking

“I have donut-eating skills”

From LinkedIn: Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. When you join LinkedIn, you get access to people, jobs, news, updates, and insights that help you be great at what you do.

Pros

Great for networking, sharing industry news, building your professional worth

Good opportunity for trainings & connecting to those who can help in your field

Business Insider: Unsurprisingly, this network is more popular than Twitter for those 30-49 and users are more educated

Cons

Really have to at least know or have connection to make it work on LinkedIn

Should have a solid focus/purpose for this one

I have a great photo of a room, recipe, item, etc. and here is where I pin it.

I have a great donut recipe

From Pinterest:

Pinterest is a place to discover ideas for all your projects and interests, hand-picked by people like you.

Pros

With the right strategy/approach, you can pin a great quote, photo that could be shared greatly

Pew: Women are dominant on Pinterest

Good for inspirational quotes/ideas

Cons

You have to have a compelling place to link back to

Most use pinterest for recipes, rooms, babies, etc.

It’s all about the video & birth of viral videos

“Watch me eat the donut”

YouTube philosophy:

YouTube allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally created videos

Pros

Gives your video a place to live and breathe online

Easily embeddable, shareable

Second biggest search engine

Cons

Video can easily get lost because of millions of videos

Can be hard to build an audience

QUESTIONS??????

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE

BEST PRACTICES

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE TAG … & HASHTAGS

When posting on social media, make sure you’re tagging organizations or people where relevant.

Give credit where credit is due and tag the organization whose information you’re referencing

Tag those who just might find it useful

This applies to most social media platforms

NOW TO THE #HASHTAG

Use hashtags where they make the most sense for your organization and for your brand.

Capitalize on already popular hashtags to help push your content & organization out there further (#TBT, #education, #STL)

Don’t go hashtag or tag crazy because no one wants to read it and it drives down search value.

WHAT DO I POST?

There’s no right or wrong answer to this. The most basic principle to remember: Keep it short, sweet and shareable.

Consider your social media audience

Things to consider:

• Ask an engaging question

• Fill in the blank

• Short, simple videos

• Powerful quote or statistic

• Power image, meme or GIF

EXAMPLES

WHEN TO POST (& HOW MUCH)

This is really determined by audience and by your time schedule.

• Analytics vary on this, but several pages tend to have a stronger audience at night and on weekends

One of the best general rules: Don’t post when the hands point to the 12 or the 6. Do it at a different time such as 3:33 or 2:45 which is when everyone typically might not be posting.

Frequency isn’t too big of a deal – depending on platform.

• With Facebook, try to let posts rest awhile before posting, so try doing it every 30 or 45 minutes.

On Twitter & Instagram, it’s not as big of a deal

While paying attention to social media and crafting tweets could be what you do all day, sometimes it’s not what you have time to do all day.

Most platforms now usually let you schedule in that platform

If not, there’s always

• Tweetdeck• Hootsuite***• Sprout Social

WHEN TO POST (& HOW MUCH) PART 2

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

Most social media platforms allow you to see analytics/insights of your audience and account

Figure out what works & what doesn’t.

Not always that prominent but you can sometimes see a pattern: reach is less on marketing posts, higher on people posts

Study the analytics & just try to climb from there.

HOW DO YOU GAUGE SUCCESS?

Depends on what you’re looking for; not everyone has the same bull's-eye

I determine success by:

• Reach• Engagement• Followers/Likes

The real key?

• Is our message spreading and

causing an affect/outcome?

INVESTING IN SOCIAL MEDIAAs already mentioned, “Pay to play” is becoming an increasingly more popular tool in social media sites.

Strategize & figure out why you’re going to “boost” a post

Facebook gives a breakdown of what you can expect for your investment and you can target what audience you want to reach. (Boosting can be as low as $20)

Twitter depends upon the “campaign” (or what you want to accomplish) but it also allows for really targeting an audience.

Campaigns can be anything such as:

• Gaining followers• Boosting engagement• Getting click-throughs• Customized

HOW DO WE HELP EACH OTHER? Make sure we follow each other/like each other (i.e. Facebook & Twitter)

Help spread the wealth of information (Share or retweet)

• This doesn’t have to be every single post or tweet, but when it pertains to your audience or might be a nugget of info that resonates, then share it

Let everyone know what hashtags you’re using to help with promoting that hashtag.

• #amgrad• #AmGradSTL

In turn, we’ll share those educational or child development tidbits that can resonate with our audience.

Through doing this, the goal & hope would be that we’re able to each grow our reach and audiences.

WHAT WE’RE DOING SOCIAL MEDIA WISE?

• All about the #amgradchampions• Promoting stories, videos, etc. • Web Series• What’s happening behind the

scenes

QUESTIONS??????

AJA J WILLIAMSAWILLIAMS@KETC.ORG

@AJAWILLIAMS09

@AMERIGRAD

@THENINENETWORK

#AMGRADSTL

ALSO ON LINKEDIN, PINTEREST, INSTAGRAM

NINENET.ORG/AMERICANGRADUATE