Web Strategy and Development Blog

Learn strategies to maximize your effectiveness on social media at Social Media Boot Camp

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Social MediaSocial media platforms are ever evolving, and keeping up with best practices for each network can be challenging.

Brush up on your social media knowledge and learn strategies to help you make the most of your communication efforts at Social Media Boot Camp.

During Social Media Boot Camp, we will answer questions such as:

  • How can I create meaningful content on my networks?
  • How should I be tailoring content to fit different social media platforms?
  • What are some advanced strategies to increase my effectiveness on Facebook and Twitter?
  • How can I best utilize photo and video content?

Details

Audience

This workshop is open to University faculty, staff and students who currently manage a website, blog or social media account on behalf of their University unit.

Registration

Registration for this workshop is free. Please register online through My Learning Connection.

To access My Learning Learning Connection, log into My Missouri State, navigate to the profile tab, scroll down to the Professional Development section and select My Learning Connection.

Recapping Welcome Weekend 2015

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Promoting Welcome Weekend: How we did it

Several offices within Marketing and Communications partnered to boost the Welcome Weekend experience via the web and social media channels. Photography and video, as well as real-time sharing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram played integral roles in the process. In addition, an emphasis was placed on sharing social media posts from students who experienced the events first-hand.

Communication about Welcome Weekend occurred across a variety of formats, including websites, social media and media relations. Highlighted promotions include:

Recapping the weekend

Welcome Weekend-themed social media posts received high engagement the week before and during Welcome Weekend events.

Facebook

  • 281,667 post reach
  • Approximately 5,000 likes
  • 469 comments
  • 9,617 stories created via shares

Twitter

  • 1,100 link clicks
  • 36 @ replies
  • 234,300 impressions

Instagram

  • 2,561 likes on five photos and videos
  • 613 likes on President Smart’s video

Videos

Social media highlights

Bear Path: one of our favorite traditions at Mo State 🐻💜#welcomeweekend #mostatesigk #followyourpassion #findyourplace

A video posted by Missouri State University (@sigmakappamsu) on

A photo posted by Charlene (@charlene_hatton) on

2015 Missouri Public Affairs Hall of Fame in review

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2015 Missouri Public Affairs Hall of Fame honoreesThe 2015 Missouri Public Affairs Hall of Fame dinner and induction ceremony took place on April 17 at the White River Conference Center in Springfield, Missouri. The event recognized the second inductees into the Hall of Fame: George Washington Carver, Simone Bernstein and Eric Greitens.

Social engagement:

The Missouri Public Affairs Hall of Fame was promoted by the Missouri State University, MarooNation and other social media accounts. Attendees were encouraged to engage in the social conversation during the event by using #ShowMeCitizens.

#ShowMeCitizens:

Overall hashtag use:

  • Impressions: 409, 575
  • Accounts reached: 54,414
  • Contributors: 24

Tweet: Great night honoring a great man. MO Public Affairs Hall of FameTwitter:

@MissouriState tweets during the week of the event:

  • Total tweets: 1
  • Impressions: 3,343
  • Engagement: 109
  • ReTweets: 1
  • Favorites: 4

@MarooNation tweets during the week of the event:

  • Total tweets: 3
  • Impressions: 5,295
  • Engagement: 85
  • ReTweets: 8
  • Favorites: 10

Live tweeting from @MissouriState during the event:

  • Total tweets: 15
  • Impressions: 55,381
  • Engagement: 502
  • ReTweets: 17
  • Favorites: 42

Facebook:

Missouri State posts during the week of the event:

  • Total posts: 1
  • Reach: 8,880
  • Likes: 33
  • Shares: 2

MarooNation posts during the week of the event:

  • Total posts: 2
  • Reach: 10,350
  • Likes: 51
  • Shares: 11

YouTube videos:

Website traffic:

Traffic to the Missouri Public Affairs Hall of Fame website was tracked through Google Analytics.

Analytics from the Missouri Public Affairs Hall of Fame website April 13-19, 2015:

  • Total pageviews: 1,758, 63% from external traffic
  • Unique pageviews: 1,345, 65% from external traffic
  • The homepage was the fourth most visited page on the public affairs website, and it accounted for 10% of all pageviews
  • The website ranked #5 and #9 in the top 10 social referrals to the Missouri State University website
  • 29 pageviews were generated by links shared in the social media kit
  • The post-event recap generated 110 pageviews by 100 unique users the weekend of the event

Recap: Find Your Place in the Digital World – Session 2

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The office of Web and new media recently presented an afternoon of training for University website editors, bloggers and social media managers.

The second session focused on the following topics in social media:

  • Best practices for all platforms
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Other visual platforms

Best practices for all platforms

Courtney Wendel-Stevenson opened with a discussion of best practices that serve as a strong foundation for any social media strategy. A few highlights:

  • Use social media as a way to interact with and listen to your audience, not simply as a way to share information.
  • Whenever possible, tag relevant people, organizations and locations in your posts.
  • When applicable, include properly sized photos and hashtags in your posts.
  • Write short text that showcases the most important information first and include a link for more information.

Facebook

Courtney Wendel-Stevenson provided perspective on Facebook, including a breakdown of its sometimes-confounding algorithm. Among her insights:

  • Boost engagement on your page by tagging followers in posts whenever possible and enabling followers to tag themselves.
  • Capitalize on the unique functionality of Facebook events to promote your activities.
  • Include all logistical information and tag the event location’s Facebook page in the location section if possible.
  • Maximize your visibility by adding other Facebook pages as event co-sponsors when possible.
  • Provide a direct link to ticketing or an event website.
  • Understand that your followers’ Facebook news feeds are dynamic. Boost your page’s visibility by encouraging followers to comment, like or click on your posts.
  • Regularly track major insights including your number of followers, post reach and post engagement.

 

Twitter

Kevin Agee led a section on making the most of Twitter. His top five tips:

  • Build your credibility by posting on a regular basis.
  • Think about voice. How would my organization sound if it was a person?
  • Listen to your analytics to give your followers the content they like.
  • Connect with millennials by engaging, not advertising.
  • Partner with other profiles and topics to tell a bigger story.

 

Visual platforms

Courtney Wendel-Stevenson closed the session with a discussion of additional social media platforms — particularly ones that highlight visual content. Key takeaways:

  • Understand that mobile usage has led to a surge in photo and video content.
  • Pictures are now one of the default ways we sort through information.

And a few tips for specific visual platforms:

Instagram

  • A great platform for visual storytelling. More than 810 photos shared per second.
  • It integrates well with other social media platforms.
  • To be successful, users need to have visually interesting content.

YouTube

  • YouTube has an immense user base. 82% of teens 14-17 regularly use YouTube.
  • Videos can tell your story in a unique and engaging way. To be most effective, videos should be two minutes or shorter.
  • Missouri State has great videos University units are welcome to share.

Aggregators

  • Aggregators like Tagboard and Storify connect user posts from a variety of platforms around a common theme – typically a hashtag
  • Aggregators can serve as an archive of the social conversation after the event.
  • Aggregators are most helpful for larger-scale campaigns and events.

Access the presentations

PDFs of the presentations are available below:

Read the recap of Find Your Place – Session 1.

YouTube Video Thumbnails

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Thumbnail images let people see a quick snapshot of your video on YouTube. After your video is finished uploading, you are able to choose a thumbnail from the three options YouTube automatically generates. To select the one you’d like to use, simply click the thumbnail and click Save Changes.

YouTube Custom Thumbnails

Custom video thumbnails

If your account is verified and in good standing, you now have the ability to upload custom thumbnails for any of your videos.

Uploading custom thumbnails

To upload a custom thumbnail image for an existing video:

  • Go to the Video Manager for your YouTube channel
  • Locate a video and click the Edit button
  • Click the Custom thumbnail button and upload your custom thumbnail image
  • Once the thumbnail is uploaded, click the Save Changes button

Custom thumbnail requirements

  • A resolution of 1280 x 720 (with a minimum width of 640 pixels)
  • Be uploaded in image formats such as .JPG, .GIF, .BMP, or .PNG
  • Remain under the 2MB file size limit

Custom thumbnail best practices

Your custom thumbnail image should be as large as possible, as the image will also be used as the preview image in the embedded player. We also recommend that thumbnails:

  • Use a 16:9 aspect ratio as it’s the most used in YouTube players and previews
  • If a person is the focal point of the custom thumbnail image, try to have their face in the middle of the frame so the video title does not overlay their face when the video is embedded

For more information on using YouTube to host your University unit’s video content, please visit our YouTube support page.