GETTING STARTED WITH SOCIAL 

Social media can make an incredible impact and should be just as strategic as your other methods of communication. We’ve outlined general tips, general guidelines, FAQs and more for the main components found in social media. Our goal is to maintain a cohesive university brand message across all social channels. 

Prior to getting your organization's account started on social, please review this webpage, the links below and then submit a social media registration form. 

If you’re unsure if social media is right for your school, department or unit, contact your school's communications team for guidance.

ESTABLISHING A SOCIAL STRATEGY

Choose clear goals and objectives and determine how you’ll measure success. 

What do you want? Are you seeking brand awareness; student/faculty recruitment; campus-wide engagement; community building, etc? 

For example: If one of your goals is to foster a campus community, you will track your engagement and engagement rate percentage (how many engagements vs. number of impressions). If one of your goals is brand awareness, you will track reach, impressions or followers. 

SETTING UP YOUR ACCOUNT

PLATFORM-SPECIFIC GUIDANCE 

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has become the fastest growing platform for CU Anschutz. Thanks to regularly posting content, highlighting events with high-quality images, engaging with others and writing engaging social posts, the CU Anschutz LI following and engagements have grown by more than 100%. 

Instagram 

Depending on your goals, Instagram is an excellent platform to showcase your organization and the people within it. Unlike other platforms, Instagram relies heavily on high-quality images and videos to highlight your organization. 

Facebook 

Facebook, now the veteran social platform of the pack, has changed quite a bit. With an ever-changing algorithm, it can be challenging to break through the other noise to not only grow your following but be seen on the platform. However, if you have an ad budget, you can garner the largest ROI for reach, impressions and engagement. Unlike other platforms, the demographic of Facebook usership is 55+. 

Twitter 

Twitter remains one of the most easy-to-use platforms to build relationships with faculty/staff, peer institutions and CU Anschutz accounts. It also is the most effective for scientists/researchers to foster collaborations, share their research and make connections with colleagues.

Twitter was once known for its 140-character limit, but within the last couple of years they increased that to 280. While visuals aren’t included in the character count, links, mentions and hashtags do, so keep that in mind. Hashtags and tagging/mentioning others dominate Twitter. It’s how trending conversations are started and serves as a gateway for you to use them on your platform.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

COMMENCEMENT ASSETS 

We have created a variety of social media assets, including Facebook frames, Twitter templates, Zoom backgrounds, Instagram stickers and more, for the 2021 Spring Commencement. Please visit the Social Commencement Assets webpage to access them all.