Social Media

A department or unit might consider starting a social media presence if any of these statements apply:

• "We have an audience we're not currently reaching or would like to reach more."
• "We can offer valuable content not being offered by other accounts at the school."
• "We have so much content, the school’s main accounts can’t post it all."
• "We want more hands-on, direct control of our portrayal and coverage."
• "We have some other organizational need that would be met by social media."

A department or unit might not consider starting a social media presence if any of these statements apply:

• “We figured everyone else is on social media, so we might as well join too.”
• “We have a student worker right now who’s really good at making memes!”
• “We don’t know how else to tell people about us and what we’re doing.”

When starting social media, it's important to prioritize intentionality and sustainability. If interested in more general guidance on marketing and communications efforts, email James Plesser ([email protected]). 

These are the different considerations to think through before starting a social media presence. Remember that no social media presence at all can be preferable to a poorly managed presence.

Think of the resources you’ll need.
Time and content are the primary resources necessary for social. Try making a few posts for practice. Stay cognizant as you think of ideas, find content and draft the posts. How much time did each stage take in total? How does that compare to the time realistically available in your week, or even your day? Also note possible sources of inspiration. How easy was it to find content and make the posts? Does it seem sustainable? 

Make sure your content will have value.
Gone are the days when “just post” was an acceptable approach to social media. Now, social media is largely value-driven, rather than self-promotional. Each post you make should have a succinct answer to the question: Why is it worth (insert audience member)'s time to look at this? Respect your future followers by determining how your content will provide value from the start.

Define your target audience.
Though higher education as an industry can involve a lot of audiences (prospective students, current students, students' families, alums, faculty and staff, the local community), reaching them all on social media can be nearly impossible, especially as only a small subset of Minnesota Carlson (which is already a subset of the University). It’s important to narrow in on a target audience. Try to think of those who’d be beneficial to reach, but who also has a chance of being mutually interested in your content.

Think through your content management.
Don’t “figure it out as you go.” Ask all the necessary questions at the start. Who will be responsible for posting? If it’s multiple people, how will you split the responsibilities? If the people involved leave or become unavailable, who will take over the social media? Where will you find your content? How will you get more? Who will approve finished posts before sharing? How often could you pause to evaluate if these processes are working, and adjust as needed?

If this is the very first social media being created for a department or unit, it'd be wise to begin on only a singular platform to determine successes, drawbacks and viability before expanding to another. For demographic information on social media platforms, read this report from Sprout Social. Here's some introductory information for each relevant option:

Instagram
Instagram is focused on photo and video sharing (videos are called Reels on the platform), and includes an interactive 24-hour Stories option. This channel is ideal for visual storytelling using striking images, video and captions. On Instagram, you can share images of campus, events, students, faculty and staff, post engaging short-form vertical videos through Reels and tap into the power of trends. Instagram leans toward a younger audience, with 18-24 being the app's most common demographic. Minnesota Carlson primarily targets current and prospective students on Instagram.

LinkedIn Page
LinkedIn is a social media network for professionals to connect, engage, and gain industry information and inspiration. Using a LinkedIn Page, you can create targeted content for professionals in specific industries and showcase research and industry expertise. Due to its double function as a job search site, LinkedIn has a slightly more formal and professional connotation, with postgraduate audiences reigning supreme (alums, industry experts and pros, faculty). Minnesota Carlson primarily targets alums, the business academic community, and staff and faculty on LinkedIn.

(Note that though LinkedIn requires a personal account to access, any organization should create a Page, not an individual account, so it's clear to any user or follower that the Page represents an entire area, not a single person.)

Facebook Page
As the largest global social media platform, Facebook remains relevant but somewhat faded. It simplistically relies on text, photos and videos like other platforms, but organizational Pages receive low engagement across all industries, as users on the platform consistently prefer interaction with more personal and familial content. To adjust for this preference, the school primarily targets students' families and alums on Facebook.

(Note that though Facebook requires a personal account to access, any organization should create a Page, not an individual account, so it's clear to any user or follower that the Page represents an entire area, not a single person.)

TikTok
TikTok is a video-sharing platform focused on short-form, vertical videos. Content focuses on audio-related trends, storytelling, entertainment and influencer recommendations. There is heavy use of video filters and templates, and a focus on authenticity over polished video content. Globally, 60% of TikTok users are among Gen Z, which might be why this is the most casual and lighthearted of all these platforms. The school primarily targets prospective students on TikTok.

Twitter/X
Minnesota Carlson does not maintain an active presence on this platform, after consistently low content performance, following a trend of low performance among any higher education accounts on the platform, with the singular exception of collegiate athletics. It is not recommended as a platform for internal units.

Once you've considered all of the reasons to start social media and have chosen which a platform to begin with, follow these steps to get started:

1. Create your account. Here are directions for starting accounts on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and TikTok.
2. Set up your profile. Choose a searchable username. Academic departments might want to reference their relation to the University at large (“umnsupplychain” or “umnmarketing”) while units might want to reference their relation to Minnesota Carlson (“carlsonmbams” or “carlsonit”). In your account’s bio, be sure to mention its relation to Carlson, and if space allows, the University, too (“Official account of Academic Advising for the @minnesotacarlson at the @umntwincities”).
3. Use the approved social media profile pic. Having the same profile pic allows for better brand alignment across the entire school. The more places it appears, the more it helps with brand awareness. Each profile will be differentiated by its social media page name and username, which will not need to be changed.

Register your account with the Marketing & Communications office. Fill out the form for safe-keeping, to ensure school-affiliated accounts don't get lost or locked.

Without content, it’s impossible to post, and without posts, a social media account can’t exist. Posts should also be balanced between content that offers promotion (news, events, deadlines, reminders, program info) and personality (school spirit, entertaining and relatable content). 

But what kind of content might a department or unit have available to them? Everywhere will be slightly different, but here’s a collection of possibilities:

People
People always make for engaging content, since users like seeing others and learning more about them. A rotating spotlight could illuminate various faces within an area, whether faculty, staff, students or alums. They can share their motivation for being within or studying their area, their educational or professional background, or of course, some fun facts about themselves. Humanizing the people at the school isn’t just fun, it provides a connection to school areas more tangible than just the name of an office. 

Research or tips
An academic department is likely filled with accomplished researchers who are experts in their respective fields. A professional unit likely has abundant advice for those it serves. Sharing this knowledge in concise, impactful snippets through posts will improve account credibility and inherently offers value to users.

Differentiating factors
It can be tempting to repeatedly and directly promote a program or offering from an area on its social media. It’s relevant to the account, yes, and beneficial to the organization, true — but users will tune out once they’ve tired of hearing about it. An indirect approach will better inform users, who may not even realize they’re being informed. Showcasing exemplary students’ stories, sharing high-quality classwork examples, recapping a unique learning experience — these will indicate the quality and attractability of a program to users without risking ire. Focus on what separates your area from neighbors or competitors and use those factors as the basis for your messaging.

Relatable funnies
Though entertaining content vastly finds the most success across all social media, creating such content is harder than it seems. Start small and simple. What are the inside jokes within an area, that users with similar interests in your community would find specifically appealing? These moments of humor don’t have to be limited to casual content on platforms like Instagram or TikTok — use that joke as the attention-grabbing opening line for a LinkedIn caption, or to foster relatability on Facebook. Content that resonates will always have a place, no matter the platform.

Industry insights
Users following an area of the school will likely be interested in similar news and information that falls within that area online. In a pinch, content from other accounts (as long as they’re credible) can be reshared by a department or unit’s account, saving time and effort on content creation while still providing value to followers. However, primary content and posts are ultimately more valuable than secondary, doing more to promote an area and allowing for ultimate tailoring and value to its specific audience.

When should a post be published? How often should posts be shared? The short, obvious answer is that it depends. The long, complete answer is that it depends on each account’s audience, the content being posted, and the bandwidth of the person managing the account. 

To plan for both post timing and frequency, keep a content calendar. Ensure consistency in your posting for each week by compiling content somewhere, whether in Google Drive functions like Sheets or Docs or through a note-taking tool like Notion. A calendar can serve as a to-do list, drafting space and content repository.

In relation to social media, "accessibility" refers to the extra steps necessary on social platforms to ensure all their users can interact with or access content, regardless of physical impairments that users may have. Here are the three most common accessibility measures and how to enact them:

Taking these measures is vital, but here's the most important thing to understand about accessibility on social media: It is not optional.

At the least, creating and sharing content without considering any of these steps hinders the experience of users online, and at the most, such negligence risks legal action for noncompliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This risk is not hypothetical — it's happened. Harvard and MIT both faced lawsuits for inaccessible web content in the 2010s, costing them millions of dollars. If you can't afford the time it takes to maintain accessibility when creating social media content, then your unit can't afford to be on social media. By maintaining accessible content, you're not only being inclusive to our community, but avoiding risk to our school.

Review ODA guidance on making social media accessible.

How a post is put together directly affects its reception by users, as they interpret its meaning and decide its relevance to them. Users’ reactions to a post determines its performance (likes, comments, shares, engagement rate). Though it may seem like the numbers don’t necessarily matter on a school department or unit’s social media, algorithms actually consider performance when deciding what content to showcase to account followers and platform users. Well-made posts ensure an account’s content gets seen and its message gets heard.

When determining how a post will look, keep these questions in mind: What would make this interesting or inspiring to our audience? Where can we infuse personality or emotion? How can I customize this content for this platform? 

Here are more tips for each part of a post:

Visuals
To create the visuals for posts (crop and edit images, design graphics, assemble videos) with branding resources conveniently at hand, follow the steps here to join the Marketing & Communications office’s Canva Team.

The visual part(s) of a post is for grabbing users’ attention and providing visual interest to a message or a story. Visuals should be understandable at a glance. Social media is not the place for entire posters or slideshows of small text. Instead, a strong, clear visual is almost always preferable. Even when a photo can’t be found that suits the topic, a graphic that displays a single headline will be more attention-grabbing (and easier to make accessible) than inserting a paragraph. Save that depth of info for the caption.

Caption
Captions, with an -s, are an accessibility measure. A caption, singular, refers to a post’s text component. This is the place to keep the vast majority of the information a post seeks to convey. When writing a caption, remember that the first 100 characters (15-25 words) are the most important, since the rest of the caption will likely be cut off by a “see more” button. Put the most important or captivating information (oftentimes, the subject of the post) in the caption’s first sentence.

Here are things to keep in mind in the language of your captions:

• Think about your audience(s), and use words they understand or use, framing messages to their needs, not yours.
• Be concise and make content easy to scan, avoiding acronyms that are not broadly understood.
• Posts should have a conversational quality, avoiding promotional or gimmicky language.
• Use relevant keywords in your caption so that your post is optimized for search within the platform

Hashtags
Hashtags were once a key component of social media platforms, signaling to algorithms what subjects a post included. However, as algorithms have evolved, they no longer need hashtags to identify many details of a post and its topic. Hashtags are now best-used to reference consistent messaging initiatives within an online community (like #CarlsonProud and #CarlsonGrad) or to unify a series of posts (#CarlsonFoodieFridays). When adding hashtags, make sure to capitalize each new word, so a screen reader can accurately read them (instead of #carlsonproud, type #CarlsonProud).  

Tags
Platforms often allow users to tag other users, directly in posts’ visuals, in captions or in comments. These tags (sometimes called “mentions” on platforms like LinkedIn) notify the tagged user directly, bringing a post to their attention. At the least, tagging individual people or organizations lets them see the post that’s somehow relevant to them, and at the most, it can lead those tagged to like, comment, share or repost the post, showing it to their own network and increasing its reach. 

Branding gives Carlson a memorable identity, supporting marketing and messaging efforts through consistency and recognizability. The Carlson Messaging & Design Toolkit has been created for school partners to learn about the brand personality and visual design system. This brand toolkit provides in-depth guidance, details and examples regarding our voice and tone, color palette, typography, design elements, iconography, photography, usage of wordmarks and more. 

Here are the 3 most important things to remember when using branding on social media:

1. Begin with the basics.
   Does the post use maroon and gold colors? Does the post use Neutraface and Newsreader fonts? Ta-da! It’s been somewhat branded. Just sticking to the most recognizable elements of the school’s branding can be a major first step toward keeping a consistent look and feel to all content coming from any area of the Minnesota Carlson. These colors and fonts are built into templates available within the school's Canva, making them a great starting point for almost any post.
2. Keep it simple.
   Most branding on social media occurs in a post’s visuals. Keeping the visuals simple helps keep them engaging to users and makes their connection to the post clearer. Keeping the branding within those visuals simple helps ensure nothing breaks brand guidelines. For example, a graphic with only five words and a pre-made icon from our custom collection is much easier to brand properly than an entire poster that uses generic stock graphics from Canva’s elements database.
3. Check your work.
   When planning posts about important events or trying to create multiple posts to promote the same subject, reach out to the Marketing & Communications office for guidance to ensure they follow brand guidelines. A tweak before sharing can be faster than a correction after publishing, and avoids possible risks to users’ brand perception. Email Garret Fettig ([email protected]) for help with branding, specifically on social media.

To level up a social media account, it's important to have a social media strategy. This kind of intentional planning is a game-changer for an account, helping to go from crossing your fingers and hitting "post" to approaching each piece of content as only a single stepping stone within a larger path forward. 

Start with goals to determine strategy and decide tactics. Goals are the purposeful reasons you have a social media account (ex. more awareness of your area), strategies identify a way to achieve goals (ex. starting and maintaining social media), and tactics are the individual actions and iterations that enact strategies (ex. student spotlights and takeovers).

Goals
To have started a social media account in the first place, there must have been a reason for doing so. Start with that reason. Maybe it's only a singular motivation, and that can be converted into your goal. Maybe your reason can be split into multiple related goals, all of which would be helpful to have in mind. By explicitly establishing all the various purposes for an account, it can be easier to align content to fulfill them. Broad, overarching goals are okay for general guidance, but SMART goals will ultimately be testable long-term, and better inform your strategy.

Example
An office wants to increase the monthly average of its student visitors by 10% over 6 months. (The office offers services that students continue to demonstrate need for, but underutilize. Increasing visitation is one of their goals that would ultimately affect that utilization.)

Strategy
Once goals have been determined, it's time to think of strategies to meet them. Think of strategies as recording intentions, so those intentions can guide each individual post seeking to accomplish a goal. It can be tempting to jump from goals to tactics, so sometimes reverse engineering strategies can be easier. Make that jump from a goal to a tactic, but then turn around and label the strategy bridging the distance crossed. When a goal is established and someone has an idea for a post, ask why that post would help. What is that post doing? That function serves as your strategy.

Example
The office will make students more familiar with the office and where it's located through its social media. (Some students might not be visiting this office because they don't know where it is, so increasing awareness of its location and students' familiarity with it could positively affect visitation.)

Tactics
With strategies marking the last step of the planning stage, tactics move into more tangible actions. Every post seen on an account is an example of a tactic, while trying to find the commonality and motivation behind a series of posts would identify the strategy being used, and likely hint at the goal. Keep in mind that tactics don't always have to be the straight or simplest path option, though these might be the easiest to pull off.

Example
On its Instagram, the office will post a series of sped-up "race" Reels, displaying two videos of students taking separate routes from well-known areas on campus to the office, showing a timer in the middle to clearly indicate which route is faster. (Technically, simply posting the office's address could be a tactic. But is it interesting, entertaining, or adding value to a user? Prioritizing this captivating content instead might ensure some users watch the race just to see who wins!)

Here are directions on how to pull data for these metrics on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and TikTok. Below, find the most common metrics and their definitions:

• Impressions: How many total times users were served a post, either in their timeline feed or from viewing on your profile
• Reach: How many individual users were served a post, either in their timeline feed or from viewing on your profile
• Followers: How many users have actively opted-in to follow your account and be shown its new posts in their timeline feed
• Engagement: Any general interaction with a post (including likes, reactions, comments, shares, reposts, clicks)
• Likes: When someone clicks “like” on a post (displayed as hearts on IG or thumbs up on FB + LI); often seen as interchangeable and tallied with reactions
• Reactions: When someone clicks any reaction button on a post (Facebook and LinkedIn add options for love, support, etc.); often seen as interchangeable and tallied with likes
• Comments: When a user writes a comment on a post
• Shares: When users send a post to other users through direct messages; often seen as interchangeable and tallied with reposts
• Reposts: When users reshare a post to their account to be seen by their followers; often seen as interchangeable and tallied with shares
• Clicks: When users click a link on a post (sometimes also includes when users click through multiple photos in a post)
• Engagement rate: A percentage that represents how many engagements a post received in relation to its total reach or impressions 

Analytics
Usually impression data, which focuses on the visibility of a post, is less actionable than engagement data, which signals a certain level of interest in a post. This is why engagement rate is typically seen as an indicator of a post's value to users. When evaluating posts with high or low engagement, ask these questions about them: What was their subject or topic? What type of media was used? How was the caption written? When were they posted? 

Choosing which metrics to track and what analytics to focus on depends on your goals. If brand awareness is the primary goal for an account, then impressions and reach would be paramount. If seeking to energize the connection with an audience, engagements would be prime. Even specific goals can have valuable analytics attached to them. Accounts wanting to offer chances for thoughtful reflection or discussion would prioritize comments, while an account wanting to redirect as many users to their website as possible would look at clicks.

Any area is going to have some things they're doing constantly or repetitively. That might mean some of their content or messaging repeats itself. Alternatively, an area might want to break one source of content into multiple parts, to expand its potential as content and allow for more posts to be made. Whether being posted in a coordinated campaign or just a series of posts that share a common theme, here's what to keep in mind when planning and posting:

Alternate posts in a campaign or series with other unrelated content.
No matter how fascinating an event might be or how interesting a series might look, users will get tired of hearing about it or seeing it if they're exposed to it too often. When possible, allow enough time before a campaign so its posts can be alternated or mixed with others, to dilute the intensity of your messaging. By softening users' attention with unrelated posts, you avoid unintentionally hardening them against your topic. If other content isn't available to pad between campaign posts, then at least reduce posting frequency, to allow time passed to serve that same buffering purpose.

Consistency is key.
Just like branding makes an entire organization and its messaging more recognizable, consistency across posts within a campaign or series can have the same familiarizing effect, and make audiences more receptive to the information contained within posts. Consistency can also speed up users' recollection of previous installments in a series or parts of a campaign, if other posts are being mixed into a posting schedule to create buffer. A similar graphic style in the visuals, a formulaic set-up to the captions, a shared hashtag — all or even one of these can create consistency.

"Repetitive" shouldn't mean "identical."
Though repeated and shared elements are important for the sake of consistency, too much similarity can negatively impact performance (just as too much variety can — it's a balance). An account posting something with the same visuals and caption as a previous post could confuse users and make them wonder if it was a technical error or could annoy users who question why they're being given the same message again. Just as viewers are less likely to skip an ad they haven't seen before, users are more likely to remain receptive to a post they haven't experienced before.

The information and advice on this page overwhelmingly applies to organic (unpaid) social media, which is often the more applicable side that departments or units may be interested in, due to its ease of use and relatively low risk-reward ratio. However, there are some circumstances when an area may have need (and budget) for a specific promotion on social media. 

The most common paid advertising for social media completed upon request for different areas is when they are hosting an event or conference and seek to drive registrations. This is done primarily on LinkedIn, and requires an ad budget of at least $350 (a minimum of $25/day + a minimum of 14 days). If that budget is available to you and this kind of promotion is desired, please submit a request via the Marketing & Communications project request form.

(General program promotion is likely not a necessary paid ad effort, since the Marketing & Communications office already actively manages digital marketing for all graduate programs at Carlson.)