What you do not know you need to know about social media

Presenters: Matt Gerrish & Dani McKean

November 21, 2014

… Don’t Do It! …………………………..

1.  Time commitment and possible risk

  1. Not responding quickly to a negative post can harm you
  2. Examples
  3. Do you have the resources to take this on?
  4. Not posting anything for months can make you look bad
  5. Examples of entities gaining negative press because sm is not updated
  6. Who has access to your page and do you trust them to represent your department and WSU? (Dani will talk more about this in guidelines/procedures)
  7. Examples of entities with disgruntled or unknowing employees, loss of login info with student turnover on campus
  8. Should I have SM for my department?
  9. Time, resources, following WSU policy and student affairs guidelines, following industry best practices
  10. Possible benefits/risks

3.  There is another option that will not cost you time and resources!

  1. WSU has established social media to help your department advertise upcoming events and important announcements
  2. Followers/Likes #s and purpose for each WSU SM account
  3. Contact Dani to discuss what would be post worthy – and she will forward to Matt – make sure you come to Dani at least two weeks in advance of posting needs

… If You Still Want To ………………

1.  University Policy

2.  Student Affairs guidelines & procedures (you will find all of these along with forms that need to be completed for Dani on the SAT website)

  1. Must have staff supervisor for all accounts created for the department and up to three admins (including the supervisor)
  2. Must let Dani know before you create accounts (so she can double check for any existing accounts) and:
  3. purpose for each
  4. who admins are (no more than three admins – supervisor must always have access, what is a good admin)
  5. plan for turnover (who will change login info)
  6. plan for training staff and students with access to your social media
  7. editorial posting calendar (what are you going to post and when? Some departments have a particular topic every day like ‘healthy recipe Monday’ or ‘free t-shirt Friday’ – have at least one month out planned)

3.  Do you have accounts and not know it?

  1. Be clear with your staff/students about not creating any SM to represent your department without being asked to do so
  2. What SM should I use?
  3. National stats on sm use
  4. What our students use
  5. Examples of successful ways to use FB, YouTube, Instagram

d.  Why it is important to focus on one or two and not use all medias

5.  Best Practices and Student Engagement

  1. Examples of engaging posts
  2. What to do if someone posts something negative
  3. Discuss basic maintenance
  4. If department feels like it is spiraling out of control, contact Dani and she will pull in Matt and University Marketing & Communication as needed

6.  Hash Tags

a.  What are they?

b.  How do I use them?

c.  Should I use them?

7.  Analytics

a.  How do I know what I am doing with my social media is worth my time?

… Personal Social Media ………………

  1. University policy
  2. All-around best practices for maintaining a good social profile (watch what you say online!)