Social Media Strategy
Background
As an institution, our main goals for social media are to increase enrollment, improve retention, engage the community, and advance the institution through alumni engagement and donor relations. Depending on the campus unit you are representing, your goals may focus on one or a few of these audiences.
In an effort to support those priorities, our social presence focuses on improving audience reach, engagement and sentiment to improve the overall reputation of the University for all audiences and create a stronger sense of Maverick Pride in our community.
To accomplish this, it is important to first research social media trends and stay up-to-date on the latest social media best practices and use that insight to help plan posts. This website gives guidence on those best practices in relation to posting from a University account.
Second, utilize data tools included in social media platforms to measure the effectiveness of your engagement strategy.
Finally, modify your strategy to adapt with the trends you see both in research and in your own data.
Priorities
Recruitment/Enrollment
Goal
- Increase brand reach
- Increase engagement
Desired outcome
- Continue to attract traditional undergraduate students
- Attract more adult learners and graduate students
- Attract more international students
Key Metrics
- Reach
- Follower growth
- Engagement Rate
How to measure through Social Media
- Track reach over time (how many people see your individual posts). Are your posts continually reaching more people over time?
- Track follower growth. Are you gaining new followers or staying stagnent?
- Engagement rate shows what percentage of your audience is engaging with your content. Track this number over time with the goal of continuously improving it. The formula is:
- Number of Engagements (likes, shares, comments, clicks) / Number of people reached x 100
Retention, Student Success,
Alumni/Donor Relations, and Community Engagement
Goal
- Improve brand image and reputation
Desired outcome
- Improve Maverick Pride among current students, alumni, donors and the community
- Increase access to helpful information for students, donors and alumni
- Foster a sense of community that helps retain current students, engage alumni and encourage donations
- See more positive organic posts about us from our audiences (word-of-mouth marketing)
Key Metrics
- Engagements
- Engagement rate
- Sentiment
How to measure through Social Media
- Track engagement (reactions, comments, clicks, shares and video views).
- Track engagement rate (total engagements divided by total reach, multiplied by 100%).
- When possible, track sentiment. Typically, third party tools are needed to measure if word-of-mouth marketing is trending towards positive or negative sentiments. This can be done using social listening tools.
Methods to Promote Goals
- Post regularly
- Post engaging content that others might share or talk about. Use daily insights on individual posts to understand what type of content audiences want.
- Leverage user-generated content: ex: Gigg board (paid software), #MavPOV, #MaverickMonday, retweets and shares.
- Utilize analytics to track progress and make data-driven decisions about what content audiences like and where and when and to post.
Methods of Reporting
- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok and Instagram analytics – create engagement reports. These can be exported into spreadsheets from most platforms. A paid third party platfom may be used to simplify generating reports.
- Spreadsheets—compile your own using your key metrics. Track on a regular basis—for example, monthly reports. Keep these for comparison purposes over time.
- Listening tools to track sentiment. Typically paid softwares.
