This document discusses developing an effective social media strategy and using metrics to drive results. It provides an overview of trends in social media usage. It then details how CareerLab at Brown University manages their social media presence across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and video platforms. They utilize a team of student peers to generate and post engaging content. The document stresses the importance of defining metrics and goals to track engagement, reach, follower growth, and content performance. It provides recommendations on best practices like sharing student stories, leveraging campus events, and maintaining consistency while testing new strategies and keeping up with digital trends.
1. DEVELOPING AN
EFFECTIVE SOCIAL
MEDIA STRATEGY
& USING METRICS TO DRIVE RESULTS
JILL PIMENTEL
PROGRAM AND COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR
BROWN UNIVERSITY
2. SOCIAL MEDIA
REVOLUTION
• 53% of millennials would rather lose their sense of smell
than their technology
• By 2018 video will account for over 2/3 of mobile usage
• Grandparents are the fastest growing demographic on
Twitter
• The average person has a :07 attention span; the average
goldfish has :08
• The 4 P’s of Marketing have been replaced with the 4 C’s
of Digital Content
• Creating, Curating, Connecting, Culture
Source: Erik Qualman, Social Media Revolution 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jottDMuLesU
3. WHY FOCUS SPECIFICALLY
ON SOCIAL MEDIA?
• To address changing algorithms
• To meet users where they are
• To find strategies in avoiding the
tendency to simply be a
megaphone
• To increase overall engagement
(digitally and in-person)
• To increase visibility of the wide
scope of work that we do
4. HOW WE PREVIOUSLY
MANAGED SOCIAL MEDIA
• Twitter: just jobs
• Facebook: everything (thanks to Hootsuite)
• Instagram: not yet used
5. HOW CAREERLAB
MANAGES SOCIAL MEDIA
• Team of Peer Career Advisors (PCAs) help to find and
generate content across channels
• PCAs split into teams based on interest
• Social Media Ambassador is the lead PCA and helps
strategize and create digital content
• Two video interns film and produce alumni spotlights and
event takeaways
• Editorial calendar and strategic processes for scheduling
posts
6. TWITTER
• Witty, engaging posts
sharing job and intern-
ship opportunities
• All 10 of our PCAs
contribute
• Occasional, but rarely, also promote upcoming events
• Utilize it for larger events in action #browncareerfair
#janlab2015
7. FACEBOOK
• Changing algorithms in recent years reduced average
reach to 6%
• Engagement = higher reach
• Posts should link to a variety of web sources (unless you
generate your own blog posts)
• Start with reducing posts to just one per day (or every
other day)
• Diversify content: job search skill resource, upcoming
event, alumni spotlight video, resource video
11. INSTAGRAM
• Define consistent hashtags
and create a library of those
that will be used always or
sometimes
• Share quote photos
• #motivationalmonday
• Share high-quality photos of
campus, events, people
(spotlights)
12. VIDEO
“[On Facebook] video posts had
organic reach of 8.71%, far higher
than text-only statuses’ 5.77%,
link posts’ 5.29%, and photo
posts’ 3.73%”
Food for thought: consider
building out video content
• Alumni Spotlights
• Larger events
• Hangouts on Air
• Informational videos
about our services
Source: Seiter, Courtney. “12 Facebook Tactics Working Right Now.” Buffer Social.
30 Mar. 2015. Web. 4 May 2015.
16. DEFINING GOALS
• Tracking video content views/engagements more
deliberately
• Creating clear, measureable goals for the next academic
year
• Engagement (clicks vs. likes/favorites vs. shares/retweets)
• Reach
• Engagement based on content type
• Follower growth
17. DO
• Measure your progress across channels (likes, engagements,
follows, etc.)
• Twitter: Iconosquare
• Facebook: Built-in insights
• Twitter: Built-in insights
• YouTube: Built-in insights
• Get creative with content and
photos!
• Share student success stories!
• Research your audience, utilize student workers to help keep
you current with digital trends and interests
• Develop a social media strategy and consistently check in
with and measure goals; Keep testing!
18. DON’T
• Forget to engage with @mentions!
• Post the same content across channels (especially
without context!)
• Miss a posting
• Creating an editorial calendar or action plan for each of
your social media channels can help ensure consistent
posting and content for your audiences
• Let your social media channels fall by the wayside
+ Twitter: PCAs would post jobs and internships using Hootsuite – they’d post to not only Twitter (and appropriate accounts) but also to facebook
+ Facebook: events and jobs; Facebook would be oversaturated with about 5-6 posts per day; we did not highlight students or engage in more humorous ways
+ Facebook team: finds content based on editorial calendar; I curate that content; Social Media Ambassador queues up posts
+ Instagram team: assigned posting days to post either photos of campus, upcoming events, or videos of PCAs or the office
+ Twitter (all): post job and internship opportunities based on our job board or unique opportunities from advisors
+ Spotlights on alumni or students, as well as more humorous content surrouncing job search skills, helps to improve engagement
----- Meeting Notes (5/5/15 14:41) -----
This post ended up resulting in 22 likes!
Insights >>> Overview >>> Scroll down and you can add pages to see how you compare
When you click on a page, you see their top posts for that week, which can give you an idea of the types of content students are engaging with
+ used this to inform how we told our story; which posts were more engaged with defined how we developed our ed cal and the types of content
Hiring a specific Social Media Intern: ONE CONSISTENT VOICE; CONSISTENCY ACROSS CHANNELS
@mentions – I’ve tried to engage with orgs on twitter asking a question or following up on a post of theirs with no response! Make sure someone is accountable for checking and responding to any mentions.
