Social Media Best Practices at SKC

Salish Kootenai College understands the importance and benefits of communicating through social media platforms. We want to encourage our divisions, departments, and programs to utilize the different types of platforms if it supports their goals. Social media can be a helpful tool to disperse relevant information across campus and communities. Our best practices guide below will provide guidance, navigation, and support to all SKC-affiliated social media accounts and administrative users.

General Maintenance and Presence

Social media accounts at SKC should be logged into a minimum of once per day, excluding weekends, to monitor and respond to posts, comments, mentions, etc.

Be present and responsive. Having an official social media account at SKC requires diligent maintenance and upkeep, including answering users’ questions and monitoring comments.
As the frequency of updates will vary for each channel, using a digital calendar to schedule content may help to make the process more efficient and time-effective.
Do not hoard content and post it all at once. Strategically schedule and space out content.
Regular posting on a weekly basis to all social media channels connected to SKC departments/programs is highly recommended.

Measuring, Analyzing & Building

When building or retaining social media accounts, a key component to measuring an account's success is through analytics.
Software applications and free tools that are available can help organize the use and monitoring of all the different platforms.
- Twitter's TweetDeck
- Facebook/Instagram's Insights
- Google's Data Studio
- Google's Alerts can help you track keywords
Study the data provided by the Social Media's analytics to determine relevant statistics, while tracking them over time.
Match analytics information against content and engagement to determine what caused certain results.
Use all the information available to better understand your audience and to inform content decisions.

Creating a personality and a voice on your social media account(s) will help you build your audience. Be personable and accessible, while keeping in mind the guidelines and suggestions offered here.
Once you have established your social media presence, cross-promote in your various channels, both online and offline. If you have a brochure or a website, drive people to your social media channels, and vice versa. Just because people are very active within your Twitter account doesn’t mean they don’t need a pamphlet or an updated website.
Don’t judge your success solely on numbers. While it is tempting to use views, fans, or followers as a metric by which to assess your engagement in social media, it is not the ideal measurement. In social media, quality trumps quantity.
Success doesn't end with building a community via social media; it's just a step within the process. You have to be present and engaged consistently over time, and you have to measure the effectiveness of that engagement over time.

Knowing your audience

Before you start posting it’s good to first learn everything you can about your audience. (Prospective Students / Current Students / Local Community Members / etc.) If you don’t know or are unclear about who your audience is, you can’t give them what they want/need.
Who is your current audience? You will need to identify your current audience, so you can go find and make new ones with the same traits or adjust if needed.

- Age
- Race
- Where are they located
- Background
- What languages do they speak
- Where do they or where did they go to school
- Income
- What stage of life they’re in (student, parent, retiree)
- Interest
- Challenges
- Etc.

Want to dive deeper into knowing your audience? Check out the customer/audience personas template.

Setting goals

Think about the results you, as managers and monitors of SKC social media accounts, want to see. Setting goals will assist in letting you (managers/monitor) learn what’s working and what’s not working. Understanding what you’re trying to accomplish will assure a better result.

SKC Objective

Social Media Goal

Metrics

Growing the brand

Awareness(these metrics illuminate current and potential audience)

Followers, shares, etc.

Turn existing audience into advocates

Engagement(these metrics show how audiences are interacting with content)

Comments, likes, mentions, etc.

Diving/Driving leads and admission applications

Conversion(these metrics demonstrate the effectiveness of social engagement)

Website clicks, information requests, applications, etc.

Improving retention

Consumer(these metrics reflect how active customers think and feel about the brand)

Testimonials, social media sentiment, etc.

Best general social media platform practices

Facebook

Managers of Facebook pages should be checking on their page(s) at least once a day. Ideally, there should be enough content available to post at least once each week. To help guarantee this task is getting done, at least two staff or faculty members should be given access in order to help accomplish this step.

Do not create an account for a department, organization, club, or office on your own. Accounts (profiles) are set up through a KissFlow form process only.
Avoid posting the same status updates on both Facebook and Twitter. Some services and applications allow you to post the exact same text and links to both channels at once, but since Twitter and Facebook are different mediums with different audiences, updates to each should be unique (including the tone, strategy and goals, and frequency of posts). If you want to post the same information on both channels, craft each status so that it makes the most of the style and tools of each platform, but don't forget about character limits or to check links are correct.
Pay attention to your insights. Facebook Insights offer a lot of information on the people who like your page and what they are interested in. Being able to understand what the insights mean and using them to create posts that will engage your fans, encourage interaction with the page, and attract new likes will help achieve targeted goals.
Be visually pleasing. Users visiting your page are drawn to visually appealing layouts and posts. Be sure to highlight photos and other visual posts, remember to delete pasted links in status updates, and edit status so they are not too lengthy. (Understand your audience.) Do not forget that what is visually appealing for Twitter’s audience, may not be appealing for Facebook’s.

Twitter

Twitter encourages frequent updates, engagement, and retweeting content. Managers of Twitter accounts should be checking on their accounts at least once a day and should be able to post often and respond with some immediacy.

Do not create an account for a department, organization, club, or office. Accounts (profiles) are set up through a KissFlow form process only.
Listen and Respond. Don’t only monitor those tweets that mention your handle directly, but set up a search so you can keep an ear on what is happening when people do not tag you in their tweet. When it’s appropriate, respond or retweet.
Avoid posting the same status updates on both Facebook and Twitter. Some services and applications allow you to post the exact same text and links to both channels at once, but since Twitter and Facebook are different mediums with different audiences, updates to each should be unique (including the tone, strategy and goals, and frequency of posts). If you want to post the same information on both channels, craft each status so that it makes the most of the style and tools of each platform, but don't forget about character limits or to check links are correct.
Two of the key elements of Twitter are the use of hashtags and the ability to tag other users in your tweets. Hashtags allow users to join a greater conversation, thus including one or two relevant hashtags in your tweets will put your tweet in front of more than just your followers. Tagging other accounts in your tweet gives them credit for the material (for example crediting a link to @nytimes) and alerts them that they’ve been mentioned, which may prompt them to retweet or comment on your tweet.
Pay attention to analytics. Metrics offer some insight into the reach and popularity of your tweets. Your job is to understand what the metrics mean and use them to create tweets that will engage your fans, encourage retweets and favorites, and attract new followers. Free Twitter metrics are available at analytics.twitter.com.
Follow the main Salish Kootenai College handle and other official SKC secondary accounts. To make it easier on account monitors we have created a list of all SKC accounts by platform. See what others are doing and we encourage occasionally retweeting relevant information from other SKC secondary handles.
Following back those who follow you is a great relationship builder. Fostering relationships and encouraging interaction is key, so following back relevant, appropriate followers build goodwill with your audiences.

Instagram

Managers of Instagram pages should be checking on their page at least once a day. There should be enough content to create a post at least once each week. To ensure this set is getting done, there should be at least two staff or faculty members who have the access and ability to accomplish this task. (Can be the same post that is shared on Facebook. Also, it can be scheduled through Facebook publisher.)

Instagram stories are another way to reach your current or future followers. Instead of bogging down your page with everything that is happening, it gives followers glimpses of what is happening through posts that will disappear in 24 hours, which is its biggest appeal. It also makes for great highlights if you don’t want the information to disappear after the 24-hour limit.
Instagram uses tags. Tagging your photos means that more people may see them, since they may be searching that tag. Make sure the hashtags are relevant.
Interact with other accounts that you follow (local and/or SKC secondary accounts) by liking and commenting on photos (content) that are relevant to you.
Tagging the location where the photo was taken gives some context to the image.

Managers of LinkedIn should be able to check on their page every few days and should have content to provide to the members.

Don’t focus on “selling” your organization/entity. Rather, put the focus on the group and members. Provide content that is appealing to them.
Carry on conversations. Facilitate group discussions by posting useful information and prompts for future discussions.
Don’t be afraid to promote what is happening in your department, division, or on campus as a whole by sending them to external websites (newspaper, SKC website, etc.) for information.

Being a team player - social media procedures

Do your part as an administrator or monitor of an SKC secondary social media account by sharing, liking, tagging, and commenting on other SKC secondary accounts.
Collaboration is encouraged with other programs, departments, and divisions.
See something, say something. Communicating with one another is key to running SKC secondary accounts. See anything that brings to mind any ideas, suggestions, and/or changes that may be needed, feel free to say something as it is welcomed and encouraged within our community.
Always be appropriate and respectful towards others. Not everybody will agree with some of the posts/comments you or others make. Make good judgment calls when it comes to responding or removing comments.

SKC's brand building

Keep in mind that your social media account(s) represent the SKC community, so make sure that you are following our design aesthetics logos, font, colors, etc. For a more in-depth style guide regulations visit Green Light at communications.skc.edu/green-light-review/.

SKC's Social Media Policy

To learn about the social media policy guidelines for Salish Kootenai College that have already been established and must be followed when using an official and/or a secondary SKC account(s), click the following link. https://policy.skc.edu/840-00-social-media/.