Social media has advanced the impact and reachability of messages – whether verbal, written, or visual – minimizing limitations on communication. It is an integral part of billions of people’s lives and has reshaped the way that we view ourselves and others.
Businesses, in particular, use social platforms to maintain their image and promote their products, and though we mainly associate marketing with said businesses, we also have the potential to market ourselves as individuals.
One fundamental idea of social media is that, in most cases, we can be selective with what to and what not to share. In other words, we can take the time to really think about and refine what we post and choose whether we post at all. This gives us a certain power: to create the image ourselves that we wish.
Of course, you should stay true to yourself, keeping in mind that your social media is an extension of who you are. Sites like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook can be just as critical as LinkedIn.
Here are few simple tips to get started or further develop:
Routinely introspect to determine whether your social media reflects who you are presently
Be selective with your words and images
Think of your social media as an extension of your resume
Stay true to yourself, but align your image with the group(s) that you are trying to “market” yourself to
Understand that different platforms attract different audiences; therefore, what you post should vary from one platform to another
Remember that social media is a tool beyond entertainment
Personal branding and maintaining an online identity can play a key role in professional development. When done right, you can set yourself apart from a sea of others!
To get the most out of your social media efforts, you’ll want to make sure that your website links show up properly. So today, we’re going to talk about the importance of ensuring your website looks great on social media and provide the tools that’ll help enhance your posts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
You’re likely already aware that each page of your website should have a title tag and meta description for SEO reasons. But did you also realize you can specifically customize how your website content displays on social media platforms? The customizations are called social media cards and they make your content more engaging by adding images and summaries when you (or anyone else for that matter) share your links on social media.
Similar to the meta tags that tell programmatic robots (like Google) about the pages on your site, social media bots scan the page associated with your link to determine what info should be displayed with it in a user’s newsfeed. If the bots can’t find anything, they take their best guess. The results can vary from boring to comical. But by enabling social media cards on your website, you can control these meta tags so social media platforms accurately determine the title, description, and image that gets displayed.
The difference between a bare hyperlink and an engaging Tweet is a small bit of code on your link’s website.
In order for these lovely link previews to display on Twitter, your website must haveTwitter Cards enabled. Adding a few lines of markup on your website means links to your content will have a “Card” with photo, title, and description to help drive readers to your content.
There are technically four different types of Twitter cards, but the one we find most useful is “Summary Card with Large Image.”
Once the correct meta tags are added to your webpage (either by you or your website administrator), you can run the URL through thevalidator tool to test how the link will look on Twitter. This tool also works for any website if you’d like to see what a link would look like before Tweeting. This is helpful since sometimes websites use different images in their meta tags than appear on the site itself.
A few notes:
The most commonly recommended image size for social media cards is 1200×628 since this size fits on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. For Twitter, you’ll want your image to be at least 300×157 and no bigger than 4096×4096.
Often, Twitter Cards are set to pull the first image on a page as a default. Be careful with this since Twitter will crop the image to make it fit the card. You might end up with a pixelated version or a vertical headshot where only the person’s nose is visible.
If you update the tags for your page (say you found a typo in your title or need to switch out the image), you’ll want to use the Twitter Card validator to force Twitter to do a fresh scrape of your page’s URL. This will cause Twitter to pull the new meta tag, ensuring that the most recent, accurate information is shared. Otherwise, Twitter might pull from an outdated cache instead.
Open Graph
Facebook and LinkedIn both generate link previews based on Open Graph meta tags. Like Twitter, if these Open Graph tags are missing or incomplete, the link preview will also be incomplete.
The Facebook Debugger is a great tool to see how a Facebook link will look before you post it. It’ll let you see all the information that the Facebook Crawler is pulling. Like Twitter, if you updated the image or preview text and it’s not displaying, click “Scrape Again” once or twice to force Facebook to get the updated information.
Recommendations from Facebook:
200×200 pixels is the minimum allowed image dimensions.
The image file size cannot exceed 8 MB.
If your image is smaller than 600×315 pixels, it’ll still display but the size will be much smaller.
When content is shared for the first time, the Facebook Crawler scrapes and caches the meta data from the URL. The crawler has to see an image at least once before it can be rendered, which means the first person who shares your link won’t see a rendered image. You can pre-cache your images and avoid this by running the URL through the Debugger.
If you update the image, the original share will continue to show unless you refresh it in the post.
Since LinkedIn also used Open Graph tags, it functions much like Facebook. The LinkedIn Post Inspector works just like the Facebook Debugger. Paste your URL and select “Inspect” to see what your link will look like on LinkedIn.
So if your site doesn’t currently have social media cards, we’d highly recommend having them added.
If various reasons prevent the addition of social media cards to your website, you can still share your content on social media. It’s just a little bit harder.
Our recommendation is to share your text with the link and applicable image. Make sure to use the correct image size for the social media platform. Also, to meet accessibility standards, you’ll need to add alt text to the image. This can be done natively in Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but only a few schedulers (Hootsuite, Sprout, etc.) have this feature. And lastly, we do have a Duke-branded link shortener available through Shib login.
So in summary, it’s key to properly manage your website content and how it displays on social media platforms rather than letting Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn determine how it’s displayed for you. By optimizing Twitter Cards and Open Graph and validating the accuracy of your website content in how it’s displayed, you can curate your content specifically for each audience you have on different social channels.
Of all the social media platforms we’re going to discuss, Twitter is the medium most built for efficiency and speed. This is due to several mechanics.
First, Twitter limits its users to 280-character posts. Often seen as a hindrance, this is one of my favorite aspects. Twitter is the social media embodiment of William Strunk’s “Omit needless words” and actually forces you to make strategic edits to help capture attention in a concise manner. When I’m converting our website content to social media posts, I almost always start with Twitter because tweeting makes me get to the point and is often the best way to discover the “heart” of a story.
In turn, these bite-sized nuggets of information called Tweets make it possible for users to skim a lot of information really fast. Twitter’s feed is ordered, for the most part, chronologically (where Facebook and Instagram are decidedly not) which guarantees fast distribution (although not necessarily quality). The newest stuff is generally on top, making Twitter the place for what’s happening right now. Couple this with hashtags and trending topics and it’s not surprising Twitter is the preferred platform for breaking news.
And once that news is out there we arrive at the key player in the Twitter machine: the retweet button. At the heart of all social media platforms is the ability to share, and Twitter’s retweet mechanic is by far the most efficient example on the World Wide Web today.
Before 2009, Twitter users had to manually retweet each other by copying text, pasting it into a new window and physically typing RT before the OP’s handle all before hitting “send.” Twitter decided to build this behavior into its product — a standard practice in tech — and boy did they. Turns out, copying and pasting made people look more closely at what they shared and think about it just a smidge longer. But the retweet button has eliminated that friction and thus exacerbated outrage-sparked sharing and the wanton spread of misinformation.
[Side note: Facebook took notice and, due to their lack of viralability in the 2012 election, decided to add their version of a RT: the share button. Let’s put a pin in that and come back to it.]
So what does this mean for communicators? First, anyone using Twitter has to adjust to the way they think about their use of language due to the character limit. This functionality has a direct impact on vocabulary, grammar and the complexity of the communication. Also, please be advised that navigating the brevity of Twitter lingo does take practice in the actual medium. Re-using website text just isn’t going to cut it.
Second, Twitter moves quickly and thus timing influences your success on the platform almost as much as the content itself. When faced with a breaking news type story, you have two choices: Break the news yourself or have Twitter break the news for you. (There are definite pros and cons to both strategies, but for this blog we’re assuming you want to be in control of your own story.)
And lastly, because Twitter is so fast and content is so easily shareable the platform can be responsible for fueling the momentum of false news. MIT researchers found that false news on Twitter spread faster, deeper and more widely than true news. Unfortunately, it’s not just influencers and Russian bots to blame; it’s ordinary Twitter users, with modest followings, who have a bias for the “sensational, unverified, emotional and false” … amplified by the millions. For communicators, this means keeping a vigilant eye out and constantly combatting the untrue.
Well, that’s all for now. Next up, Facebook. Until then 👋
Fifty-six years ago, scholar Marshall McLuhan published “Understanding Media,” and 14 years ago I was assigned to read it as part of an undergraduate elective course, “Media, Culture and Society.” Clocking in at over 500 pages, McLuhan’s seminal work is a bit of a doorstop, but the text’s best-known phrase — “The medium is the message” — is one I haven’t forgotten. Even though McLuhan’s theory predates the digital age, his work still provides perspective on new communication platforms such as social media.
What McLuhan meant by this expression was that the actual content (i.e. this blog post) is beholden to the medium through which it’s being delivered (i.e. the computer or smartphone on which you’re currently reading). That is, the technology delivering the message (i.e. your printing presses, TVS, radios, websites, so forth and so on) inherently change how we communicate and, in so doing, alter or even supersede the message.
One of the most famous historical examples is the 1960 Richard Nixon/John F. Kennedy debate. TV audiences thought the good-looking JFK emerged victorious, while radio listeners believed Nixon to be the victor. (Some even go so far as to state that Kennedy would never have been president without the medium of television.) Same content, but what people thought had happened was very different depending on the medium they were using.
A more recent example is the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical CATS, whose stage version featuring elaborate costumes and much-lauded choreography appealed to millions for years, while its CGI-laden cinematic counterpart, well, didn’t.
Back to the matter at hand, all this is to say that the way your audience interprets, understands and engages with your content is influenced heavily by the platform you’re using and how you’re using it. From Facebook’s live video to Instagram’s filters to Twitter’s character limit, it’s important to look at each platform as a unique opportunity when crafting a story and to use each platform’s unique parameters to help shape your message. The rest of this blog series will examine how the technology behind each social media platform influences the way its users interpret its messages.
So what does this mean for communicators? First, anyone using Twitter has to adjust to the way they think about their use of language due to the character limit. This functionality has a direct impact on vocabulary, grammar and the complexity of the communication. Also, please be advised that navigating the brevity of Twitter lingo does take practice in the actual medium. Re-using website text just isn’t going to cut it.
Last year’s team of editors (I don’t have a group pic yet this year because several of our editors are studying abroad!)
We have approximately one student editor per @DukeStudents channel. I say approximately because we have a couple of people who run multiple channels, and our Instagram channel has two editors. (It works better that way for content flow.) One of these editors is our editor-in-chief, who runs strategy, analytics, and the process of keeping everyone on track. We’ve found it works a lot better when we let them be in charge of each other. I’m basically just there in case they get stuck on something.
These editors are paid! We meet in person (or via Google Hangouts for the study abroad students) once every two weeks, but the rest of their work is done off-site whenever they have time. We keep things organized on a team Slack. We try really hard not to over-schedule them. They do a lot remotely and they work different hours than I do, so it works better for everyone this way.
You might be surprised to know that the student editors have full control over their respective accounts. That means that they don’t have to submit drafts to anyone for review, and they are allowed to choose and curate what they want to post! (More on how we make that work later.)
We also have a team of content contributors. They are mostly underclassmen and are unpaid. There are about 40 of them! We meet with them once a month and keep in touch online via GroupMe. They’re each assigned one of the paid editors as their mentor for a set period of time, and then they rotate to a different editor. This gives them exposure to a lot of different social media channels. Their job is to contribute content to the editors for each of the different channels. Eventually, we hire our student editors from this group, so being a content contributor is almost part of the interview process to be a student editor.
Here are the rules:
People usually gasp and clutch their pearls when I tell them the students don’t have to submit drafts to me before they post, but we do have a pretty solid set of time-tested rules that all of the editors know and follow. I do read their posts once they go up, and on the rare occasion I have to ask them to take something down, but they’re actually usually even more careful than I would be with the rules I’ve given them.
The rules go thusly:
The “Grandma Rule:” If your grandma wouldn’t want to see it, don’t post it.
No references to alcohol, parties, drugs (and no red Solo cups, no matter what’s in them)
Nothing dangerous
No content promoting Greek or SLG organizations (This is because we don’t want to accidentally play favorites, so it’s just easier to not promote any of them.)
No profanity, including phrases like “AF,” or hashtags that contain profanity (like #GTHC and #DDMF)
Do not insult other schools, even in reference to sports
Follow NCAA athlete recruitment rules
Do not answer admissions questions. Always redirect to Admissions!
These rules really take care of most of the problems we might have with what to post and what not to post. It really helps to begin a group like this with the rules in mind so that you can be clear about expectations. We’ve found that once the expectations are established, the more freedom we can give them, the better. More freedom equals more creativity!
It’s also helpful to remember that they are students, and students are human, and humans mess up sometimes. They’re going to mess up. (To be fair, so are you.) So with that in mind, make sure that you have a plan in place for when they mess up or need help and a way they can contact you anytime.
Hiring:
I mentioned above that we hire to our paid student editors team from the pool of content creators. This gives us at least an academic year to make a determination about whether the student is enthusiastic about @DukeStudents or not, and we’re hiring for enthusiasm, not necessarily skill. You can teach skills. (Doing social media isn’t brain surgery, guys– hate to break it to you.) You cannot teach enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm!
Other ways students can help you:
If you don’t want to set up social media that your students can run on their own, there are lots of other ways to use the talent of your students:
Use them as a focus group! They know really cool stuff. Ask them about new social media channels and how they use social media.
Have them collect content for you! Most of them already know how to shoot great video on their phones and have an eye for what will work in an Instagram feed.
Occasionally make them do boring stuff. No one likes spreadsheets, but let’s be real. You’re the grown-up here and it won’t kill them to copy-paste for a couple of hours.
In conclusion, students are awesome!
Get yourself a team of them and see how much more fun they make your job!
This summer, I managed the Duke Global Baton, a campaign on Instagram where students posted photos and videos from their international studies and global work.
The campaign required me to connect with a new student each week in various locations around the world, and this was my first time coordinating an international campaign. Here’s some of what I learned, from one novice to another.
Before the Campaign Starts
Plan, plan, plan! There are numerous steps that need to be taken well in advance to ensure a successful project.
Advertise and recruit. This is a big one, and the earlier you start, the better. For example, starting in February or March, we would post graphics on social media inviting students, faculty and staff to apply to hold the baton in the summer. We would also promote through our newsletter and ask partners on campus to spread the word.
For sign-ups, we’ve used a Qualtrics form and email. Both work! With a larger campaign, it may be nice to have the additional organization that Qualtrics provides.
Applicants would send us their preferred name, year at Duke, program of study and availability. We also considered asking for a photography sample, but so far, we’ve had no issue with lack of quality.
Select participants. Decide what criteria you are looking for. For our global campaign, we like to show the breadth of Duke’s international work. We selected baton holders based on the region they would be traveling to and the type of work they would be doing. Availability is probably the most important factor, however! Which leads me to…
Schedule. During our ten-week summer campaign, our goal was to have a new student posting every week. Create a spreadsheet as candidates volunteer and use this to solve the scheduling puzzle.
And have a Plan B for scheduling. As we all know, life happens. During our scheduling step, we would make sure to note other Duke study away programs held during the same timeframes and keep a list of other students that we had worked with in the past and could possibly ask to fill in if someone cancels.
Prep instruction. We made a short document that explains the campaign and provides some guidelines. Once participants were selected, we would send the document in a template emails for participants that also included dates, passwords and trouble-shooting advice.
Design graphics. It really helps to have some of the design work done when the campaign starts. Think about how you might use graphics in advance. For our campaign, we used graphics as covers for the Instagram highlight reels and also shared flyers on Facebook. It helped to have a versatile design where we could plug in images from the different countries and adjust the text as needed.
Prepare thank-you’s. Everyone likes to feel appreciated. Write a template email in advance to save a little time, and tailor it to the individual participant.
During the Campaign
Remind. A week before someone is scheduled to post, send an email to remind them of the dates that they are scheduled to post. In this email, we would also include our username, password and any other small reminders about hashtags and signing posts with their personal handles, etc. (We’ve also considered using LastPass to make it easier to share and change the passwords but haven’t quite implemented it yet.)
Respond quickly. Answers questions from participants promptly. With a multi-person campaign, it is important that you answer questions as fast as you can. For us, there were times when participants would have trouble logging into the Instagram account because of security concerns with their location. To allow them to post, we needed to send the authentication code, and quickly. You don’t want to risk your contributors losing interest or not being able to post during their scheduled time.
Send encouragement. A lot of our participants are either in intensive programs or spending time with family and sometimes need a little encouragement or a reminder to post. Let participants know what you’ve enjoyed seeing.
Monitor social accounts. We didn’t review posts before baton holders published, but we would read each post. We’ve never had an issue with content so far (fingers-crossed!).
Throughout the campaign, show some engagement on your social media feed, and it will pay off! We look for active posts and also like and comment on images from other users. Think of it like being an interesting guest at a party – share something valuable and encourage others.
Archive images. Keep in contact with the participants and ask for their original photos that they posted. These pictures will be extremely useful for any sort of documentation or advertising after the campaign, and the resolution is much better than a screenshot. After participants finished posting, we asked them to upload images to a Box folder. Some just emailed their images, and that’s fine, too.
Promote the campaign on other platforms. Here is another instance when having access to archived, full-resolution images can help. We would repost photos from Instagram to our Facebook account and share the link for the campaign. This would allow us to promote the campaign to a separate audience and generate more engagement on both platforms.
Contact partners, again. Let other communicators know when students in their programs are posting and ask other groups on campus to help promote the campaign.
Make highlight reels (Instagram) and collages (Facebook). This is the fun part. This is where your pre-made graphics are extremely helpful. This year, we decided to make a highlight from the country where each baton holder posted. Our highlights feature some of our favorite posts and most active posts this summer (another use of the archived photos; it’s all coming together huh?).
After the Campaign
Once it’s over, there are just a few more things that need to be done.
Show more appreciation. Another thank you to the participants can’t hurt. Your mom would be proud. And by doing this, you help your chances with good participation during the next campaign.
Offer a reward. We would give participants Duke Global swag. If they completed a survey, the swag was even better ☺
Reuse content. We made a couple multimedia features that summarize the campaigns. To create the layout, we used Adobe Spark and posted the feature on our website and shared with partners. Again, full-res archived pictures are very useful. Show what your campaign is all about. This also serves as a last “thank you” to participants. Here are a couple examples:
During this campaign (again, my first one. EVER) I found a few things that aren’t necessarily required but very helpful.
First, remember to leave lots of room for creative freedom. We want to make sure that our participants are expressing themselves (while representing Duke respectfully). You want variety, why else run a collaborative campaign?
Next, be flexible. Admittedly, this was hard for me. However, I learned with working on a campaign relying so heavily on outside participation, flexibility is a MUST. Be ready for things to change or not go how you planned. It is ok, and the truth is probably no one will know there is a problem but you.
My last bit of advice, before I send you off to be a global campaign expert – it’s okay to be annoying. Everyone is dealing with time differences, travel logistics and overall busy people things. I learned very early that it is ok to “hound” people, and they often seem to appreciate reminders. But you also must be very responsive, in turn.
(Here’s the wonderful team that made it all happen, the Office of Global Affairs.)
Whether you’re looking to expand your social media efforts or simply keep pace with the competition, here are some tips, tricks and some of my personal preferences that might make the job slightly easier and your content all the more share-able.
THE THOUGHTFUL ART OF TAGGING
We’ve all seen the @ symbol. Every major social media network offers the ability to tag other users, which you should do. But there are some rules (more like guidelines).
First, a tag is not a hashtag and should not be used the same. A tag identifies the person or brand and notifies them you’ve mentioned them in a post. A hashtag identifies posts on a specific topic. (More on that later.)
Tags work very much like starting a conversation in real life. They’re the social media equivalent of a “heads up,” helping to signify to another user that you’re talking about them, alerting them to potential topics of interest, and/or initiating a chat.
Much like there is an art to conversation, so too is there an art to tagging. Tag no one and you miss opportunities for positive conversations. Tag everyone and you’ll turn them off and they’ll tune you out — Kind of like someone calling your phone repeatedly and leaving a bunch of voicemails (boo).
DO: Use tags on all social media platforms
DO: Be selective about who you’re tagging
DO: Limit tags to two or fewer per post and to users who would be legitimately interested in your content
DO: Incorporate tags into the general flow of your writing
DON’T: Tag anyone & everyone who just might be interested in your content
DON’T: Tag yourself
DON’T: List a bunch of tags at the end of your post
Hashtags are a great way to join a conversation and/or categorize your post for others to find with ease. However, excessive hashtag use is one of the most irritating social media habits to avoid (IMO). A well-used hashtag can increase engagement, but too many or inapplicable hashtags render your post illegible and gives your account an air of desperation.
This section’s title trends towards the hyperbolic, but even the below tactic is rather unadvisable:
Also keep in mind, hashtags do work differently on each platform. For your convenience, the one and only Sonja put together this most practical of presentations. And if you’re in the market for Duke specific hashtags -> Well we have a list for that.
DO: Use hashtags appropriate to your content
DO: Use hashtags differently depending on the platform
DO: Check hashtags to make sure they don’t have unintended or alternate meanings
DON’T: Use inapplicable hashtags just to join trending topics
DON’T: Over hashtag — For maximum engagement, you pretty much get 1 or 2 per post and that’s it (except on Instagram)
Every day millions of people upload millions of social media images. It’s true that photos usually garner greater engagement, but those that inspire actual engagement rather than a cursory glance are few and far between. Why? Too many images are low-quality, unappealing, incorrectly sized or just flat out boring.
The images you share with a post are every bit a part
of the story you’re telling as the text. Actually images are more emotionally
resonate, so your image will generally supersede the accompanying text as the
main takeaway for your audience. So a pixelated photo or an image without a
focal point is like showing up to a cocktail party in your worn-out pajamas.
DO: Use the right size image for the right platform – Sprout’s handy list is a good place to start
DO: Improve your visual literacy (Words have meanings — So do images)
DO: Use visuals with consistent color and design aesthetic (if possible)
DO: Plan your social content with visual imagery in mind
DON’T: Use headshots alone on social platforms — There’s almost always a better way
DON’T: Use graphics on your Instagram feed — Trust us
This section begins with one overarching
message: People are less likely to click on a link if they don’t trust where it
takes them.
There is a lot of bad content on social
media, so people tend to be a tad skeptical. This means we have to work even
harder to gain users’ trust, most of the time before they ever click on that
link we’re sharing.
When it comes to links, looks aren’t everything but they certainly make a difference. The main platforms we use to share links — Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn — use social cards, which allow the content creator to choose the image, title and description that displays on social media platforms when someone shares the content.
Without social cards on your website, we
have to manually upload (and alt text to) an image every time we (and anyone
else for that matter) share your link. The alternative is to live with whatever
image the platform pulls in from your website, which is more-times-than-not
most unflattering. Facebook and LinkedIn allow for some customization when
posting natively. Twitter does not.
If your website does not have social cards (especially Twitter Cards), please talk to your web developer to have them added. If you do have social cards, please be cognizant of what images are being pulled in. Decapitated headshots and too small images don’t do anyone any favors and diminish the chance a reader might actually click your link (unless you’re indeed trying to scare them away).
DO: Have your web developer add social cards to your website
DO: Pay attention to what images the cards pull in on different platforms
DO: If your website uses vertical images, plan to have horizontal options for social
DON’T: Share sketchy links to sources that might not be trustworthy
DON’T: Bury your link in a bunch of tags and/or hashtags like it’s a word search puzzle
Since we’ve given you examples of what not to do, here’s a Tweet that gets all four things right to end today’s conversation:
We love seeing how the different schools of @DukeU come together to provide such a rich experience for our business school students and others—like this new program in #HealthCareInnovation
Well that’s all the advice I have for this blog post outing. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading and be sure to check out our previous entries as well as be on the lookout for upcoming posts on all manner of topics related to the wide world of social media. Until then 👋
You may have heard communicators starting to talk about accessibility at Duke, and while a lot of it has to do with websites and videos, some has to do with social media as well.
Video Captioning
Let’s start with videos since we use video so often on social media. While not all videos require captioning at Duke, in order for us to share videos on our main Duke channels, including social media, videos do need to be captioned.
The easiest way to caption your videos is in YouTube. YouTube allows you to upload a text file or transcribe your file in real-time, and then it auto-times the captions for you and makes an .srt file. You can use that same .srt file on pretty much every platform that allows captioning, including Facebook and Twitter (although on Twitter, you need to use Media Studio).
If your video is longer than a few minutes, you can use an OIT-vetted captioning service to outsource the captioning. For livestreaming, we’ve also typically outsourced captioning.
Image Tagging
The other main part of making social media accessible is adding alt tags to your images. Alt tags give alternate text to describe an image. If your websites are accessible, you’re using alt tags there already. Now, many social media platforms also give us the opportunity to insert alt tags for images.
On Facebook, every time you upload an image, there’s an option to edit your photo and add alt text:
Click the paintbrush to edit the photo.Then click the “Alt text” button to add your own alternate text to the image.
You can even go back and edit photos you’ve already posted to include alt text.
On Instagram, the idea is the same. You can edit the photo to add alt text.
Click on the “Add Alt Text” option.
As with Facebook, you can go back and edit images you’ve already posted to add alt text.
Twitter allows you to add alt text as well, as you are posting. You do need to turn on the option first, though.
Click the “Add description” option at the bottom of an uploaded picture.
Unfortunately, as with all Twitter posts, you cannot go back and edit them later, including going back to edit or add alt text.
Scheduling
If you’re doing a lot of social media, you’re probably scheduling your content. You can schedule natively in Facebook, including adding the alt text, but what about the other platforms?
We haven’t found a great scheduler for Instagram that includes all of Instagram’s features, like alt text and location tagging. Luckily, if you have a scheduler you like, you can continue to use it and just add the alt text after you’ve posted.
For Twitter, we’ve been told that Sprout includes accessibility options. In UComms, we’re using Buffer for Twitter scheduling, which does allow us to add alt text. Without a scheduler that allows alt tagging, Twitter is really hard to manage and make accessible. There’s no native scheduler in Twitter and no way to edit old Twitter posts.
Hacks to Make Things Easier
Not everything has to be alt tagged! If, for example, you’re posting a link on Facebook or Twitter, the “card” that comes with that link does not need an extra alt tag.
This is a Twitter card!
If your website is set up with the proper OpenGraph tagging for Facebook and Twitter, you should be all set and not even have to worry about uploading a separate image for your tweet or post. (Your webmaster can help you with this!) If you want to see a preview of what your link or anyone else’s link will look like on Twitter, you can try the Twitter card validator.
More on Accessibility
There’s a whole website at Duke dedicated to accessibility, so I encourage you to dig into that if you have more questions about what you should be doing, what you’re required to be doing, and how to implement changes in your processes. Also, please feel free to reach out to me (Sonja Likness) about social media accessibility or Joel Crawford-Smith at Duke about your other Duke accessibility-related questions. We’d be happy to help!
Is it the year of LinkedIn? They’re rolling out lots of new features lately. We’ve seen huge growth in native video uploads, especially first-person explainer-style formats. LinkedIn also recently relaunched Groups with new features. We’ve found that the articles we post on Duke’s LinkedIn page give us pretty good referral numbers to our website.
Messaging Apps
You all know about Facebook Messenger, and I hope you’re paying attention to your Facebook page’s inbox. But did you know that you can now do ads in Messenger?
WhatsApp also just launched WhatsApp Business, and while we’re not doing anything there yet, I’m definitely keeping an eye on it.
And, yeah, Snapchat is still a player here! While the stories-format content is easier and sometimes more popular on Instagram now, Snapchat is still an important 1-to-1 communication tool for many of our students.
More on Stories
Yep, we’re still talking about the stories format. It’s the big new thing! So what does that mean for you?
It means you’re going to have to start thinking about vertical video if you haven’t yet. Gone are the days when I’d constantly yell at people to turn their phone horizontal to make videos. Now vertical video is a totally legit format!
It also means you have a great opportunity to make in-the-moment, less produced content, and for those of us with a small team, this is great news!
Music
A couple of apps based on the idea of music are up-and-coming. Of course there’s Spotify, which lets you create public playlists. (Check out the @DukeStudents Spotify!)
And if you have teenagers around you at all, you probably also know about TikTok (formerly Musical.ly). We don’t have an institutional TikTok account yet, but we might in the future!
My prediction? Apps and social media with huge music libraries are going to keep being kind of a big deal!
Social Media’s Reputation
Social media took a big hit this year. People are questioning everything that’s posted, stupid viral stunts are hitting the news, users are worrying about their privacy (and rightly so!) and some are even leaving social media all together.
As brands, it’s our job to make the spaces we control on social media as safe as possible for our fans and followers. Puppy pictures are always a good place to start, just sayin’.
If you’re doing social media for higher ed, chances are you’re also doing lots of other things. We’re famously over-burdened with communications duties. Fear not, though. I’m here to help give some guidance on how you can do the social media part of your job faster and better.
Use a social dashboard.
I’m not here to sell you a product, but using a tool like Hootsuite or Buffer (even the free versions!) can really help you streamline your process. Instead of making sure you’re sitting by your computer to hit the tweet button when it’s time, or worse, tweeting randomly when you have a few minutes between phone calls and meetings, a tool like this will help you plan out your day or week of content and will send out your content when you schedule it to go out. You’re not off the hook on monitoring any responses, but at least you don’t have to remember to press Publish each time!
If you’re working with a team, some kind of social dashboard also helps you keep track of what everyone else is doing. You can share a login and all take turns, or if you have a little money, you can buy multiple “seats” on a platform like Hootsuite.
Another advantage to using something like this is that it gives you a monitoring/listening dashboard. I like to use mine to look at several Twitter lists at once, all in columns next to each other.
Get an editorial calendar.
Again, I’m not here to sell you software, and it doesn’t matter what tool you use as long as you’re using it properly and getting the other members of your team to use it properly. An editorial calendar can be as simple as sticky notes on a whiteboard or as complicated as a big project management system.
The goal is to let everyone on your team see what content everyone else is producing and when it will be published. As a social media coordinator, having other people show you what their content is and where it will be published will save you so much time! After all, it’s your job to share all of that tasty content.
At University Communications, we use Trello, but you can use whatever works well for your team.
Trello has a nice calendar view that’s helpful to see, too.
Get quicker about image sizing.
If you’re working on social media, you’re probably spending a fair amount of time resizing images for use on your different platforms for posts, banners, profile images and all kinds of other things. Check out the always up-to-date social media image sizes cheat sheet from Sprout, and keep in mind that if you have a horizontal image already, you’ll be mostly ok.
I’m also a heavy user of Canva.com, which is a whole ton easier to figure out than, say, Photoshop.
You can make pretty, professional-looking graphics like this in just a few minutes on Canva.
Use tools to make your life easier!
Here are some of my favorites:
Photography:
VSCO – Photo editing app Plotaverse – Animate your photos Flixel – Animated photos Snapseed – Photo editing app (iPhone or Android) Werble – Animated photos MaskArt – Using a video, make a still photo with a little motion on it (called a cinemagraph). PICOO Camera – Another cinemagraph creation app.
Video:
Open Broadcaster Software – Free video recording and live streaming software Filmic Pro – Video recording app with more functionality than the native iPhone app LumaFusion – video editing app (like FinalCut, but on your phone) CutStory – cut video into 15-second chunks for Instagram Stories (iPhone app)
Analytics:
Google Analytics – free website analytics CrowdTangle – track social media activity on a website/article Tweriod – figure out when your Twitter followers are online
Hope that helps create some more space for your other job functions or even just a few minutes to be more creative with your content during the day! Feel free to comment below with your own tips and tricks for social media efficiency.
