Getting started:
Questions to ask yourself before you start:
Do my goals align with my audiences’ goals? Great social media strategy happens when you bring your social media goals in alignment with your audiences’ goals. You can start to identify where those goals overlap by asking yourself these questions:
Who are your target audiences?
What are their goals in relation to your unit?
What are your goals for your social media presence?
How do those target audiences impact your goals?
Do your goals align with the goals of your audiences?
How can your content help your audiences achieve their goals?
Example of goal alignment from the strategy for @arkansastech:
Audience goal - Prospective Students: Figure out if they fit in at universities they are interested in attending.
Instagram account goal: Show prospective students a slice of life view of ATU to help them determine if they fit into our campus culture.
What if my goals don’t align with the target audiences? If you find that your goals and your audiences’ goals don’t overlap - that’s okay. Go back to the original reason you wanted to start this social media account.
How does that reason affect your audiences?
How would a social media presence for your unit help your audiences?
Work through these questions until you find where your goals overlap with your audiences’ goals.
What kind of content can I post to help my audiences accomplish their goals?
Content can be broken down into four buckets:
Inform
Educate
Entertain
Build Relationships
All of your content should be able to slot into one of those four buckets. All of your content in each bucket should serve your audience in some way.
How does my content support and enhance the overall brand of Arkansas Tech University?
All social media accounts associated with ATU have a responsibility to support and enhance the ATU brand. Your content is a part of the larger university story. You contribute to how ATU is perceived with every social media post. Refer to the ATU Brand Strategy Guide to familiarize yourself with the ATU brand story. Here are some questions to ask yourself about your content:
What brand color(s) does my content naturally fall into?
Does my post connect to or exemplify one of the main ATU storylines?
Brown - Our relentless dedication drives our achievement.
Purple - Our compassionate support of the whole person empowers our potential.
Yellow - We seek to advance and transform through innovation.
Now that you have your strategy and messaging outlined: What do the next three months of posts look like for you?
Build your content plan out as far in advance as you can so you aren’t scrambling to come up with posts at the last minute. Planning your posts in advance allows you more time to make sure you are staying on-brand and on-message and supporting the overall goals of ATU.