Social Media Guide

Branding is important

Consistency in branding builds trust – trust builds engagement.

TIP

• Make sure branding is consistent across all social media (free tools like Canva are a great tool to explore)
• First impressions count right? It’s imperative you complete your bio and the “about” section with engaging and accurate content. Check out this guide!
• Triple check that all links direct you to the correct destination – ticket sales, landing pages, blogs, etc.
• Ensure handles are consistent across channels and make them known to everyone using or managing your pages.
• Bounce off UNE Life, to help promote your Event, Cause, Page, Competition, tag us and add us as co-hosts for events, we’ll help spread the word far and wide (by increasing your reach)
• As a team decide on the brand guidelines and make sure you stick to these.

Content is key

By ensuring you have a clear direction and some structure to the content you are creating and publishing you will be in a much stronger position when it comes to engaging and converting “leads”.

CONTENT RECIPE

1. Make sure you’re only sharing visually pleasing content (no pixelation/out of focus shots)
2. Make sure your language is consistent and engaging
3. Make sure your content has a purpose
4. Use link building or tagging to reach more people
5. Use the rule of thirds when taking a photo
6. White space is your friend!

Think about what you want to see in your feed… if its ugly you’ll keep scrolling, if its interesting you’ll engage.

TIP

• Use videos, photos, and gifs – they’re visually pleasing  *see below for suggestions
• Share news, events, activities highlights, and celebrations
• Only post good quality images!
• Share links from UNE, UNE Life, Clubs & Societies, and sources when you’re low on content – but make sure it’s relevant!
• When you do share content created by others –  Remember to tag them in the post too. If it is an individual’s content it’s best practice to request permission.
• Facebook and Instagram have rules about the text on imagery – usually, they will penalise you for this, as they will think it’s an advert. Aim for no text –  or a maximum of 20% text on an image and put all the other detail in the text box.
• Stories typically receive the best engagement – try and post these most frequently and link them to something tangible, an existing post or a call to action. Like everything content – think of your aesthetics when you’re posting.

What is engagement?

Think about social media engagement like a long-term relationship…

It takes dedication, adaptability and forward-thinking. When you add these things together with a bit of thought you can ensure your relationship will happily last.

SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT IS

• Clicks (on the three little dots, scrolls in your photos, taps on a poll answer)
• Likes
• Comments
• Shares

TIP

• Use your stories to highlight and boost your content
• Pin your best content to the top of the page on FB
• When people like, comment or share your posts – make sure you reply!
• Like share and comment on like-minded pages – this will mean you’re seen in more places
• Create a response matrix to help you with talking to your followers.
• Your aim is to get someone to click anywhere on the post – so more than one line of text is great, use spacing to your advantage – using multiple pictures, gifs, snippets of video are best!

NEGATIVE COMMENTS

• If you receive any negative comments – reply empathetically inviting them to email you (to get the conversation off your main page).
• Escalate negative comments – if a negative comment involves a students welfare or something that may concern UNE, your College Head, or UNE Life, screenshot the comment and alert the right person above.

Reach vs. impressions

Reach is the total number of unique people who see your content. Impressions are the number of times your content is displayed, no matter if it was clicked or not.

TYPES OF REACH

1. Organic =  number of times your content was displayed for free (ie in news feed or on your page)
2. Paid =  number of times your paid content was displayed.
3. Viral = number of times content linked with your page was displayed or shared by others.  This includes liking, sharing or commenting.

TIPS

To organically increase your reach be sure to include

• Location tagging vary this from post to post but always keep them relevant
• Tag relevant brands, groups, others – not just everyone!
• Hashtags 

Understanding #Hashtags

Hashtags are used for searchability – use existing hashtags for reach and try and incorporate one that is specific to your event or group for identity.

TIP

• Capitalize for readability
• You can use up to 30 hashtags on Instagram. We recommend you include at least 15-20  in every IG post. Make these specific to your content/message and vary from post to post.
• You can use around 3 hashtags on Facebook – this is fairly new, so it doesn’t work perfectly, but they are worth including.
• Add hashtags either as the first comment or use this tip to put them a few rows below your caption
• Only 3 hashtags work in Instagram stories. Don’t shrink your hashtags – IG flags this and disables the search. Use broad hashtags in your stories. Learn more here
• You can hide hashtags and actual tags behind giphys, text boxes, and images.
• If you’re creating a custom hashtag – do your research make sure no one else is using this tag, you can simply do a google search for this or if they are using it just make sure it’s not inappropriate or contradictory to your purpose.

Official UNE #Hashtags

#UniNewEngland #UNELife #ActivateMyUNELife #AlumniUNE #ProudtobeUNE #TeamUNE
#UNEpeople #FeedTheStudents #TakeMeToUNE

When to post

Deciding when to post on social media will vary for each account. This will change from time to time.

To find your best times go to:

• Facebook > insights > post
• Instagram > menu > insights

GUIDELINES

We would recommend thinking of your audience…

• If you’re trying to speak to the general community aim for 6am – 9am OR 6pm – 9pm
• If you’re trying to speak with students 11ap-3pm is best – think about when you spend most time online – this will typically be right for your student audience. Best times to post on Social Media – Sprout Social

The most important thing with content posting is consistency, if you don’t have enough information to follow your insights yet – you can reference global times to kick start your scheduling.

Infographic from later.com

Scheduling

Scheduling simply means planning your social media activities so you’re able to achieve your goals and priorities in the time you have available. It can also help you balance and plan your workload.

TIPS

• How to natively schedule a post on Facebook
• How to schedule to Instagram
• Think about what you want to achieve  (today, this week or this month) to keep on track to accomplish your goals.

There are lots of scheduling tools out there – depending on budget and the time you want to dedicate to learning how to use a new platform.

BE REALISTIC

Set SMART goals for yourself

• Specific Defined and clear
• Measurable With specific criteria so you can measure your progress towards the goal
• Achievable Attainable, not impossible
• Realistic Within reach, and relevant to your purpose
• Timely Keep a clearly defined timeline, include a starting date and a target date (creating a sense of urgency)

Events and how to make the most of them

• Planning – All events require planning and advertising, the more organised you are with the details the better your event will be!
• Details – For student events, we recommend getting the event details hosted online as soon as possible – 4 weeks beforehand is a good starting point. People want information – the “about” section of your event should be as enticing as possible.
• Schedule posts – scheduling posts and teasers with information will be the key to getting organis reach and people at your events
• Reach – to amplify your event you can include UNE Life and Tune!FM as a co-host, if you have posted your event with enough time we will try our best to drive some traffic to this event. The key to getting us to help out is by including as much information as possible!

For tips on how to create an event check out this blog

Social Media Trends in 2023

Thanks to Hubspot

1. Brands with an engaged social media community will win in 2023.
2. Social media is the future of e-commerce.
3. Consumers slide into brands’ DMs for customer service.
4. Search engines lose steam as consumers turn to social search.
5. Influencer marketers ditch celebrities for micro-influencers.
6. Short-form video is the highest ROI format and will see the most growth of any trend in 2023.
7. Funny, trendy, and relatable content will stand out all 2023.
8. Instagram is the highest ROI platform and will see the most growth of any social app in 2023.
9. Social budgets will be put under the microscope, but marketers are staying optimistic.
10. Re-sharing the same content across platforms won’t fly in 2023.