Best practices

Four questions to answer before getting started

1. What do you hope to accomplish by using social media?

Your social media presence should support the larger strategic plan for your school, college, or department. The most successful university social media accounts have social media strategic plans that ladder up into your unit's overall communication plans. 

2. Do you have clearly defined measurable goals?

The goals you set should support your larger overall strategy for your school, college, department, or program. They should be easily measurable and show how your social media efforts support business objectives. The goals you define will help you understand what social networks are the most useful to adopt.

3. Do you have the content (stories, photos, videos) to sustain a presence, or would you benefit from creating content to share on the official university accounts?

Concentrate your efforts on one platform to start. It is rarely a good idea to launch multiple social media platforms at the same time, especially if you have limited resources for social media management. 

Successful social media efforts update Facebook and Instagram a minimum three times a week and Twitter three to 10 times each day. Programs that are unable to meet content requirements can always submit content for consideration for posting to official university accounts. We’re here to help. 

4. Do you have a full-time employee to oversee your social media account(s)?

Social media is a highly visible form of communication that should not be taken lightly. All officially recognized university social media accounts should have a full-time staff or faculty member who has administrative access and is accountable for the content posted.