Social Media Best Practices

Questions Before Launching Social Channels

Answer these questions before launching your own social channels:

• Is there a larger umbrella account you can partner with instead?
  Is there a broader, established social media account within your organization that you could partner with instead of creating a new one? Leveraging an existing platform might offer greater reach and impact.
• Has your area’s leadership been informed about and approved this social media presence?
  If you are a school or academic unit, please get approval from your communication lead as well as other appropriate leadership in your area.
• What are your primary objectives?
  Clearly define what you aim to achieve with this social media presence. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, engage with a specific community or drive traffic to a particular site or event?
• Why choose social media over other marketing channels?
  Consider why social media is the best platform for your goals compared to other marketing avenues like email campaigns, newsletters or traditional media.
• Do you have a communications strategy?
  Social media does not stand alone. Have you developed a clear, strategic plan for how this social media channel will align with and support your broader communication goals? How will this channel complement and reinforce your other marketing and communication strategies?
• Who is your target audience?
  Determine the particular demographics and groups you want to connect with. Knowing your audience is essential for choosing the right channels and for customizing your content and engagement strategies effectively.
• Do you have unique, interesting, shareable content?
  Do you have a steady stream of compelling content that will resonate with your audience and encourage them to share it within their networks?
• Do you have the time and resources to post and engage with your audience?
  Keeping your social media presence active demands consistent posting and engagement with your audience. Do you have the time and resources to manage this effectively? University channels should be chiefly overseen and operated by staff members rather than students. While students can contribute, all content should be reviewed by staff before publication.
• What are your specific goals?
  Beyond general objectives, what measurable goals do you have for this channel? For example, do you want to achieve a certain number of followers, engagement rate or conversions?
• What is your strategy for audience growth?
  How do you plan to attract and retain followers? Consider strategies like cross-promotion, collaborations and content optimization to grow your audience effectively.

Avoid Duplicating Efforts

Before creating a new social media account, consider whether your content could be integrated into an existing, broader platform. For instance, if you represent a program or office within a department, explore the possibility of sharing your updates and announcements on the department's main social media page. This approach not only reduces redundancy but also helps consolidate the audience, ensuring that users receive a cohesive stream of information without having to follow multiple similar accounts.

By collaborating with the administrator of an existing page, you can leverage an established audience and enhance the visibility of your content without the need for a separate account that might compete for the same users’ attention. This strategy fosters a more unified and streamlined communication effort, making it easier for your audience to stay informed and engaged.

Additionally, consolidating efforts under a larger umbrella account can lead to better resource management, as maintaining multiple accounts can be time consuming and may dilute your team’s focus. Pooling resources into a single, well-maintained page often results in a more robust and impactful social media presence.

Creating A Social Strategy

• Establish strategic partnerships before launch
  Consider collaborating with existing partners or umbrella organizations to strengthen your social media efforts before creating new channels.
• Set achievable goals
  Define clear, realistic objectives for what you want to accomplish with your social media presence.
• Understand your audience
  Conduct thorough research to identify the demographics, interests and behaviors of your target audience.
• Analyze your competitors
  Study similar organizations or brands to understand their strategies, successes and areas for improvement.
• Define content buckets and brand voice
  Create content categories that align with your brand’s voice and message, ensuring consistency and relevance across posts.
• Select the right social channels
  Choose the most suitable social media platforms based on your goals, audience and content type, and understand the purpose of each.
• Monitor, engage and analyze
  Regularly track your performance, engage with your audience and analyze data to refine your strategy and improve results.

Content Planning

• Align content with key dates and events
  Develop your content calendar by tying posts into relevant holidays, campus events, academic calendars and current news. This ensures your content is timely and resonates with your audience.
• Plan your assets and messaging
  Strategically map out the visuals, videos, and written content you’ll need for each post. Consider the messaging that aligns with your goals and how it will engage your target audience.
• Schedule content in advance
  Plan and schedule your posts ahead of time to maintain a consistent presence. Utilize scheduling tools to automate posts, ensuring that your content goes live at optimal times without the need for constant manual updates.
• Experiment with posting days and times
  Test different days and times to discover when your audience is most active and engaged. Use these insights to refine your posting schedule for maximum reach and interaction.
• Choose the right channels for each post
  Tailor your content to fit the strengths of each social media platform. Some messages might be better suited for X, while others may perform better on Instagram or LinkedIn. Selecting the right channel is key to amplifying your message.
• Maintain consistency
  Consistency in posting, tone and branding is essential for building a strong, recognizable presence. Ensure that your content calendar reflects a regular posting schedule and maintains a consistent brand voice across all channels.
• Develop marketing plans and toolkits for major campaigns
  For larger initiatives that you wish to be shared with others outside your department, create detailed marketing plans and toolkits that include guidelines, templates and assets. These resources make it easy for other departments and campus partners to share content, ensuring cohesive messaging and broad campuswide participation.

Engagement

Meaningful engagement on social media is more than just interacting with your audience, it’s about fostering a sense of community and connection. When done effectively, engagement can have far-reaching benefits:

• Creates a welcoming community
  Engaging with your audience helps to create an inclusive and inviting environment where followers feel valued and heard. By acknowledging their contributions and responding to their queries, you reinforce a sense of belonging within your community.
• Builds trust with your audience
  Regular and authentic interaction builds credibility and trust. When your audience sees that you are responsive and attentive, they are more likely to view your account as reliable and trustworthy. This trust is crucial for deepening relationships and encouraging long-term loyalty.
• Converts non-followers into followers
  Active engagement can turn casual visitors or one-time commenters into loyal followers. When potential followers see that your account is responsive and actively involved in the community, they are more likely to follow and engage with your content regularly.

Ways to Engage Effectively:

• Respond to comments and direct messages (DMs)
  Always take the time to reply to comments and direct messages. Whether it’s answering a question, acknowledging feedback or simply thanking someone for their input, responding promptly shows that you care about your audience's opinions and experiences.
• Comment on other campus accounts
  Engage with other accounts within your campus community by commenting on their posts. This not only strengthens ties within the community but also increases your visibility among their followers. Your thoughtful comments can attract new followers who are interested in similar topics.
• Participate in trending topics or popular posts
  Join in on trending topics, challenges or widely discussed posts that are relevant to your audience. Participating in these conversations can position your account as a relevant and active part of broader social media discussions, increasing your reach and influence
• Search under campus hashtags and locations
  Use campus-specific hashtags (e.g., #UCSanDiego, #UCSD) or search for posts tagged with campus locations to find content related to your community. Engaging with these posts — whether by liking, commenting or sharing — helps to connect you with a wider audience and demonstrates your involvement in campus life.

Analytics

Consistently evaluating the performance of your social media channels and content is crucial for refining your strategy and achieving your goals. Some of the key metrics we monitor include:

• Audience growth: Tracking the increase in followers or subscribers over time.
• Engagement rate: Measuring the level of interaction with your content, including likes, comments and shares.
• Post impressions: Counting how often your content is seen by users.
• Reach: Understanding the total number of unique users who see your content.
• Engagements: Analyzing the total interactions with your posts, such as likes, shares, comments and clicks.
• Link clicks: Monitoring how often users click on links within your posts to visit your website or other external content.

In addition to using third-party tools, you can review analytics directly within each social media platform. Depending on the platform, these insights can be found under sections labeled “Insights,” “Analytics,” “Dashboard” or similar terms. These built-in analytics offer a platform-specific view of your channel’s performance, helping you understand what resonates with your audience.

As you analyze this data, think about the goals you’ve set for your social media channels. Reassess your content strategy based on what’s working well and what isn’t. If certain types of content or posting times are underperforming, consider adjusting your approach to better align with your audience’s preferences and behaviors.

Finally, it’s important to share your successes with your department. Highlighting what’s working well not only validates your efforts but also encourages collaboration and support from your team. Regularly communicating these insights can lead to a more unified and effective social media presence across your organization

Accessibility

We are dedicated to ensuring that people with disabilities have equal access to UC San Diego’s social media content and can participate in meaningful discussions. Consider the following when creating posts and comments:

• Alt text provides descriptions of images for those who are visually impaired. Use the alt text options available on social media platforms or your publishing tool to describe your images.
• Captions are not only helpful for those with hearing impairments but also in quiet environments or for those learning a new language. Use services like Rev, Amara or 3Play to create captions for your videos.
• Hashtags with multiple words should be written in Pascal case (capitalize each word) for better readability and screen reader compatibility. For example, instead of #tritonpride use #TritonPride. Use hashtags sparingly.
• Emojis are read aloud by screen readers. Be mindful of the number and arrangement of emojis and space them appropriately.
• Graphics should have sufficient color contrast for readability and accessibility. High contrast between text and background colors not only makes the content easier to read but also ensures that it’s accessible to a wider audience, including those with visual impairments. Always prioritize strong color contrast to maintain clear and legible visuals. See Accessible Brand Color Combinations.

For further guidance, visit accessibility.ucsd.edu or accessible-social.com.

User-Generated Content

User-Generated Content (UGC) is a great way to incorporate relatable content and keep your social media channels authentic:

• Allows your followers the unique opportunity to participate in the content they are seeing instead of just being a spectator.
• Usually performs well better than more polished content.
• If your audience sees you sharing UGC, it further incentivizes people to post and tag your account in the hopes of you reposting, helping increase visibility and overall engagement.
• Reposting stories you are tagged in is another easy way to show off the student perspective of events, campus scenery and overall UC San Diego culture.

To get permission to use the photo, we comment or DM something along the lines of: “We love this photo! Would you mind sending this to us so we can share it on our social channels with credit given to you?” We always make sure to tag the owner of the photo in the caption as well as the image itself.