- Catch their eye: Utilize images in your posts — because photos and videos take up more space in the feed, they're more likely to catch your audience's attention as they scroll! Most links serve the same function, as they auto-pull their own image.
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Streamline your message: When communicating on social, assume that your audience is quickly skimming. Identify your main points and lead with them. When targeting students, consider the following:
- What’s the main goal of your post? Are you announcing a career fair, promoting Handshake signups, or closing your office for the holiday break?
- Why is it relevant to them? Communicate clearly (and concisely!) why they need to know and what benefit it will have for them.
- What is their next step? End with a strong call to action.
- Engage with your audience: When relevant, encourage conversation in your Facebook comments by asking a question or encouraging sharing among the student body.
- Use threads when relevant: Twitter is a LOUD platform, and it's easy for messaging to get lost. That's why I recommend using threads to continue bumping up your content in a student's feed! If they miss the first tweet, they might see a response tweet later on as they scroll.
- Utilize hashtags: School-specific and topical hashtags will help your audience find the content that’s relevant to them.
- Pin and retweet important/timely tweets: Have a message you don’t want your students to miss? Pin it to the top of your page and retweet it periodically to increase visibility.
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Streamline your message: Twitter’s 240-character limit ensures a relatively brief message, but always consider the following:
- What’s the main goal of your post?
- Why is it relevant to them?
- What is their next step?
Other notes —
- Twitter is a great real-time engagement tool. Monitor it closely as a way to answer questions from your students, especially around special events on campus (sports games, finals week, job fairs). If this is something you want to encourage, you could even set up “virtual office hours.”
- Use Stories: The Instagram Stories function is the best way to ensure visibility on the platform, as algorithmic changes make feeds somewhat unpredictable. Even when posting something new on your feed, “share” it (using the paper airplane icon) to your page’s Story for quick, easy cross-promotion.
- Streamline your message: Instagram cuts off long bits of text, so be sure to frontload the important information. Remember: goal, relevance, next step.
- Geotag your posts: Be sure to add a relevant location to each Instagram post to help increase its visibility. When you tag yourself at your university campus, that means students exploring Instagram are more likely to come across your content. (This counts for Stories, too!)
- Use relevant hashtags on every post: If your university has a hashtag, be sure to include it in every feed and Stories post to increase your likelihood of being seen.
- Optimize your posting schedule: When is your audience most likely to be surfing Instagram? Explore Instagram “Insights” (located within the menu at the top right of your profile page) for information about your audience’s prime activity periods, and time your posts accordingly.
- Use relevant tags and hashtags to truly amplify your post! LinkedIn is another platform where images can help catch somebody's eye in the feed, especially because so much content on LinkedIn is text-based.
- “Like” and comment on posts that support your message. Even if you’ve posted a link or update on your own page, be sure to engage with others who share your post — this activity will show up in followers’ feeds and ensure that they see your content.
- Pin important updates to the top of your profile: Just like with Twitter, this increases your post’s visibility.