social media strategy at west virginia university

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DEVELOPING A SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

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WHO ARE WE?

• Tony Dobies, senior writer for University Relations/News– @DOBIEST on social media

• Candace Nelson, senior writer for University Relations/News– @Candace07 on social media

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WHY IS SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY IMPORTANT?• It saves time• It gives you boundaries, parameters, goals• It lets you know what’s working and what’s not• It lets you be successful – and prove it!• It can set you apart

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THE STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY

1) Create a team

2) Set goals

3) Execute your plan

4) Measure success

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CREATE A TEAM

• If not a team, choose one person who can focus on social media

• If multiple people, make sure they are in constant communication

• It’s key to hire a passionate person who understands the goals of the department

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CREATE A TEAM

• This person should have the power to work quickly and timely –or– create a process that allows for quick and timely posting

• Find “influentials” … Include them somehow

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CREATE A TEAM

• Types of teams– One-person: all accounts are run by the same

employee; likely main job responsibility– Partial: a group of employees who add social media

onto current job responsibilities and have to stay in constant communication

– Complete: a group of employees led by a social media strategist that focuses solely on social media

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WHAT DOES WVU DO?

• Partial team– Divided based on

audience (Twitter and Instagram are targeted mainly to prospective and current students)

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SET GOALS

• Ask yourself: What does your department want? What is your department trying to gain through social media?

• Align content to overall institutional goals• Be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable,

realistic and time-bound) • Be realistic

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SET GOALS

• Each goal must include– Objective – What do you want to do? – Platform – On what form of social media? – Metrics – By what means do you want to

measure success/failure?– Time – By what date?

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WHAT DOES WVU DO?

Goal: Develop a stronger conversation with admitted and prospective students on Instagram and Twitter. Weekly mentions should improve by 20 percent by June 30.

OBJECTIVE

PLATFORM

METRICS

TIME

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WHAT DOES WVU DO?

Goal: Improve views to WVUToday on the weekends on Twitter. Referrals from Twitter on the weekends should increase by 50 percent by June 30.

OBJECTIVE

PLATFORM

METRICS

TIME

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EXECUTE YOUR PLAN

• Do the work! Develop a content plan • These will be very specific to your goal• Think about audience, what does audience want? • Do your research, see what are others are doing and

adapt to your own social media goals– #casesmc on Twitter– higher ed blogs like http://socialmediaforcolleges.com

AKA: HOW DO YOU REACH YOUR GOAL?

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WHAT DOES WVU DO?Goal: Develop a stronger conversation with admitted and prospective students on Instagram and Twitter. Weekly mentions should improve by 20 percent by June 30.

• Plan– Increase the monitoring of the #WVU18 hashtag and key

search terms like “excited” and “accepted” + “WVU.” – Respond to at least five students who have used

#WVU18 each week– Begin “Did You Know” tweets weekly with information

admitted/prospective students may not know about WVU

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WHAT DOES WVU DO?Goal: Improve views to WVUToday on the weekends on Twitter. Referrals from Twitter on the weekends should increase by 50 percent by June 30.

• Plan– During the week, schedule tweets for the weekend

of the week’s most popular stories.– Utilize photos taken throughout the week that

aren’t used to feature over the weekend with stories

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EXECUTE YOUR PLAN

• Re-use your content– http://utaustin.tumblr.com/post/55026557732/

big-bertha-became-the-sweetheart-of-the-longhorn

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EXECUTE YOUR PLAN

• Aggregate your content– http://social.wm.edu/– http://storify.com/wvutoday/wvu-commenceme

nt-december-2013

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EXECUTE YOUR PLAN

• Tell stories– https://www.facebook.com/peopleofucla/photo

s/a.531538070296421.1073741828.531529343630627/531688910281337/?type=1&theater

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EXECUTE YOUR PLAN

• Challenges and contests– http://instagram.com/p/Yxru4LH-0m/

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EXECUTE YOUR PLAN

• Leverage events– https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10

151616084341085&set=a.473141356084.282436.215120346084&type=1&theater

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MEASURE SUCCESS

• Did you meet your goals? • Only measure what matters – based on your

metrics

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MEASURE SUCCESS

• Tools to measure success– Free: Google Analytics, Buffer, Tweetdeck,

Facebook Analytics, bit.ly, Webstagram, Statigram, Topsy

– Pay: Sprout Social, Hootsuite, Meltwater Buzz, Radian6, Adobe Social

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DEVELOP A PERSONALITY

• Create a person behind the logo • Set the tone/identity to your account • Based upon your department goals• Answer these: Who are you? –and– Who do

you want to be?

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WHAT DOES WVU DO?

• We should be a proud Mountaineer – the biggest Mountaineer fan out there! We should wear the gold and blue on our sleeve at all times and yell it atop every mountain. We should act as many Mountaineers do and present a friendly and welcoming attitude to life in general but especially to those touching the University in some way. It’s OK to poke fun at ourselves, too, because we know we’re not perfect.

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QUESTIONS

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LET’S PRACTICE

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FINAL THOUGHTS

• Start with less, grow when you can sustain • Be agile• Think of social media from the get-go.

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WANT MORE INFO?

• Email us at anthony.dobies@mail.wvu.edu and candace.nelson@mail.wvu.edu – Individual social media strategy sessions– Anything regarding social media