With Christmas and the much welcomed time off fast approaching – don’t let your social media efforts lose their momentum. People are online loads more over the holidays, so make sure you are getting your voice heard and don’t go silent!
Multiple Admins
It’s really important to make sure your Facebook Page / Twitter or any other platforms you are using have more than one person who can share content, and respond to messages. This is especially important in the event of public complaints on your wall, or inappropriate spam.
To add more admins to your Facebook Page, just go to it, click “Edit Page”, then “Manage Admins”. Easiest way is to put in the email address of the person who you want to add (needs to be the one they use for their Facebook profile).
Get Mobile
Most of us have smartphones such as iPhone, Blackberry or Android devices – so the days of depending on your desktop computer are over! Did you know there are FREE apps you can install on your phone that will give you a friendly nudge when someone mentions you or adds a comment to your page? These apps allow you to reply there and then too! Which one to use is very much down to personal preference.
We would recommend either Seesmic Mobile (Android, iPhone, Windows 7 mobile) or Hootsuite Mobile (Android, Blackberry, iPhone). Personally I prefer Seesmic, as it’s a bit more user friendly – but Hootsuite does have the facility to Schedule posts (see next section).
Schedule your posts to happen automatically!
If you know you’re going to be off work, or the department is closed – you don’t have to log on from home to keep your social media presence alive! Clever apps (mobile and on computer) can do this all for you, you just put in what you want and when – and at the specified time your tweet/post will be published!
We’d recommend using Hootsuite – you don’t have to install anything (it’s a website) and it has tons of features in addition to scheduling posts (such as monitoring for keywords). Plus it’s free for a basic account. Remember you can get a mobile version of it too so you can schedule posts on the go!
Best Posting Practice
Especially if you are posting when your students are off – keep it FUN! They probably won’t want to hear too much formal stuff when they are busy stuffing their faces with mince pies and going out with friends.
Maybe share some funny videos or websites (there are loads such as Elf Yourself where you can put your head on a dancing elf!). Also StumbleUpon is a great site that finds you great content in various categories.
You want to be encouraging comments and likes as much as possible on Facebook – the more of these you get, the more likely that your users are going to see your content in the future (this is determined by Facebook’s Edgerank Algorithm).
Make your posts “likeable” and interactive, use rich media such as video where possible, and post regularly – try to do one a day. Remember – you can schedule them now so no excuse not to!
Net Natives are experts on Social Media Strategy and and Advertising have worked with over 70 FE clients to date.
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help YOU – email ben@netnatives.co.uk or call 01273 783 847
