Seven steps to social media stardom
Author: Kelsey Seymour
Posted on Oct 2, 2017
Category: Brand , Web and Social Media
Want to raise the social media bar? This seven step guide is designed to set you on the path to success. You’ll learn to create engaging content that your audience will respond to, understand and implement social media best practices and start achieving results.
1. Strategy
The first step to being a social media superstar is developing a well thought-out and dynamic strategy. Start by establishing what you want to achieve, then set measurable objectives to help you get there.
Set some rules for yourself before launching your account. For example, identify how many times a week you’re going to post or how often you’re going to check your engagement metrics.
Identify your audience and think about the type of content they would expect from you. Engaging content is essential to growing your accounts.
Keeping your objectives in mind, plan valuable content your audience would want to see and pay attention to the engagement you receive (but don’t obsess over “likes” and followers.) You want your audience to be engaged and invested.
2. Branding
It’s important to keep the UNB brand in mind when developing all aspects of your social media accounts. By staying on brand, you’ll not only build trust with potential audience members, but you’ll have the support of the corporate accounts to extend your reach. When it comes to having strong brand identity, consistency equals impact.
Use UNB fonts and colours where possible to help strengthen and build the UNB brand.
3. Print vs. Digital
When developing content for your social accounts consider what works best for digital vs. print. Posters can be an effective tool for raising awareness about events but they are designed for print not digital!
Instead of uploading an image of your poster, create content specifically designed for the channel you’re using. If you’re promoting an event, use a high quality image or video that speaks to the topic and include the event information in the description.
Images and videos are an important element in helping to communicate a story or message and are usually the first thing to grab your audience's eye. Make sure it's eye-catching – in a good way.
Images
A simple, high quality image is typically the most effective way to promote your content. There’s no need to wing it on Photoshop or to go crazy with graphics. Instead, find an image that’s engaging and relevant to the message you’re trying to convey to your audience.
Video
Videos can be a compelling way to tell your story, but content and quality matter. If you’re using video for a high profile initiative, hire the pros to ensure it looks professional and has optimal results. However, there is a time and place for DIY. iPhone videos can work for casual updates or promotions and live-video – particularly on Snapchat and Instagram stories.
Contact socialmedia@unb.cafor advice on video requirements and guidelines.
4. Unique & customized content
Without fresh and engaging content, even the best social media strategy can fall flat.
Unique
If you have more than one social media account, don’t post the same content to multiple platforms and especially don’t feed your Facebook page to your Twitter account. Instead, create unique, compelling content for each platform (even stagger them when possible) and think about what platform makes the most sense for your goals and objectives. (Tip: upload natively for more reach and engagement.)
Customized
Similar to creating unique content for each platform, you want to think about what’s going to work best on each specific platform you’re using. Don’t just paste a link or text into Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter and hit publish.
Take the time to shorten your links (e.g. goo.gl), customize titles and descriptions and add media (photo or video) where possible. This will make your content more engaging, authentic and help you reach social media stardom!
5. Copyright & credit permissions
When publishing content online, it’s important to think about copyright. Don’t use content that you or UNB doesn’t own. Instead, create your own content or ask for permission and credit the content creator or owner.
6. Be real
People want to know there’s a real human on the other side of the screen that they can engage with so don’t be a boring robot! Ensure your content is authentic, listen to your audience and respond in a real, positive and helpful way.
7. Stay strong
The digital sphere can be tough and it’s easy to get discouraged or overwhelmed by the breadth and pace. Stay strong! Pay attention to what your audience engages with and learn from your mistakes and successes. Take the time to experiment with your accounts and have fun!
Have a question about social media? Please email us at socialmedia@unb.ca. We love to help.
-Kelsey