Social Media Guide

Navigating the landscape of social media platforms can be overwhelming, but fear not – we’re here to guide you in selecting the best fit for your club or society!

For your clubs and societies, Facebook and Instagram stand out as preferred social media platforms due to their cross-posting capabilities and easy audience reach. While both are valuable, we recommend Facebook as the primary choice because of its versatility. Facebook provides ample room for your audience to engage in conversations, and it also facilitates the hosting and sharing of events.

Facebook

• Facebook offers versatile features that cater to different aspects of engagement.
• Facebook Groups to cultivate a close-knit community, fostering discussions and sharing updates. It’s an ideal space for members to connect and contribute.
• Facebook Events simplify the planning and coordination of your club’s activities, making RSVPs and event promotion a breeze.

Instagram

• Thrives on visual content – this is the perfect opportunity to showcase your club’s personality through captivating photos and stories, providing a more visually oriented platform for engagement.

Whether you opt for the community-centric vibe of Facebook Groups and Events or the visually compelling allure of Instagram, choosing the right platform will amplify your club’s online presence and engagement.

Experiment, explore, and find the platform that resonates best with your club’s unique identity!

Do’s:

Promote Inclusivity:

• Encourage clubs to create an inclusive and welcoming environment for all members.
• Ensure that the language used is respectful and considerate of diverse backgrounds.

Share Relevant Content:

• Encourage clubs to share content related to their activities, events, and achievements.
• Promote sharing information that is relevant to the club’s mission and interests.

Engage with Members:

• Encourage active engagement with members through polls, discussions, and Q&A sessions.
• Respond promptly to comments and messages to foster a sense of community.

Highlight Achievements:

• Share the successes and achievements of the club members and the club itself. UNE Life will also request this of you throughout the year in the shape of a blog or social media post from their feed facilitated by you.
• Celebrate milestones, events, and contributions of members.

Moderation Policies:

• Establish clear moderation policies outlining what is considered acceptable behavior.
• Define consequences for violations, such as warnings, temporary suspension, or removal from the group.

Don’ts:

Avoid Controversial Topics:

• Discourage discussions on controversial or sensitive topics that may lead to conflicts within the group.
• Emphasise the importance of maintaining a positive and respectful atmosphere.

No Discrimination:

• Strictly prohibit discriminatory language, hate speech, or any form of harassment.
• Make it clear that discriminatory behaviour will result in immediate consequences.

Avoid Spamming:

• Discourage excessive posting that may lead to spamming members’ feeds.
• Encourage clubs to consolidate information and post updates at reasonable intervals.

No Unauthorised Promotions:

• Prohibit the promotion of external products or services without approval.
• Ensure that promotional content aligns with the club’s mission and values.

Adding moderation features, such as flagging content, in Facebook groups can help maintain a healthy and respectful online community.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to set up moderation flags in Facebook groups:

Access Group Settings:

• Go to your Facebook group and click on the ellipsis (…) in the top right corner.
• From the dropdown menu, select “Group Settings.”

Navigate to Moderation Settings:

• In the Group Settings, scroll down to the “Moderation” section.

Enable Post Approval:

• Turn on post-approval to ensure that all posts require approval before being visible in the group. This helps filter out inappropriate content.

Set Keyword Alerts:

• Scroll down to the “Keywords Alerts” section under Moderation.
• Add specific keywords that are likely associated with inappropriate content or violations of group guidelines. Any post containing these keywords will be flagged for your review. If you need help with this, please reach out to us!

Enable Membership Approval:

• Consider turning on membership approval to review and approve new members before they join the group. This adds an additional layer of moderation.

Turn on Reporting to Admins:

• Enable the option that allows group members to report content to group admins. This is a crucial feature for community self-moderation.

Educate Group Members:

• Inform group members about the moderation rules and guidelines, encouraging them to report any inappropriate content they come across.

Regularly Review Moderation Queue:

• As an admin or moderator, regularly review the moderation queue to approve or disapprove posts and handle reported content promptly.

By following these steps, you can implement effective moderation flags in your Facebook group to maintain a positive and respectful online environment. It’s important to stay engaged with the group, address reported content promptly, and communicate moderation guidelines to ensure a smooth experience for all members.

Events and how to make the most of them

• Planning – All events require planning and advertising, the more organised you are with the details the better your event will be!
• Details – For student events, we recommend getting the event details hosted online as soon as possible – 4 weeks beforehand is a good starting point. People want information – the “about” section of your event should be as enticing as possible.
• Schedule posts – scheduling posts and teasers with information will be the key to getting organic reach and people at your events
• Reach – to amplify your event you can include UNE Life and Tune!FM as a co-host, if you have posted your event with enough time we will try our best to drive some traffic to this event. The key to getting us to help out is to include as much information as possible!

How to set up your event

UNE Life’s main calendar of events is hosted on UNE Life’s Facebook page. As a UNE Life Club or Society, you have the opportunity to get your events hosted on their page and in front of more viewers.

Step 1 – Create a Facebook event using your Club or Societies Facebook page.
Step 2 – Please title your event with “Clubs & Socs | {event name}” ie Clubs & Socs | Summer Wall Climbing or Clubs & Socs | Farming Futures Careers Expo
Step 3 – Make sure to include all the details including time, place, date, an engaging event description, and links to further information (such as ticket links or your clubs page).
Step 3 – Invite UNELife2351 as a cohost to your event
Step 4 – send a Direct Message (DM) to UNELife2351 asking the team to accept the cohost request and send the direct link for the event in the DM.

When UNE Life accepts your cohost request, your event will be added to the UNE Life feed reaching eyes beyond your Club or Society.

For tips on how to create an event check out this blog

Consistency in branding builds trust – trust builds engagement.

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• Make sure branding is consistent across all social media (free tools like Canva are a great tool to explore)
• First impressions count. You should complete your bio and the “about” section with engaging and accurate content. Check out this guide!
• Triple-check that all links direct you to the correct destination – unione, landing pages, blogs, etc.
• Ensure handles are consistent across channels and make them known to everyone using or managing your pages.
• Bounce off UNE Life, to help promote your Event, Cause, Page, or Competition, tag us and add us as co-hosts for events, we’ll help spread the word far and wide (by increasing your reach).
• As a team decide on the brand guidelines and make sure you stick to these.

Your audience or target market is a particular group of consumers/followers at which a product or service is aimed.

By identifying your audiences you’ll be able to adapt your content, which will help you to speak to their interests and hold a level of understanding.

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• Create buyer personas
• Look at your competitors (other UNE clubs, other university societies etc)
• Monitor engagements and comments
• Witness external social habits
• Conduct surveys and polls

Your audience could consist of

• Students (in your club or society, not in your club or society)
• UNE staff members (in your club or society, not in your club or society)
• The wider UNE community (community members, parents of students, future parents of students)

By ensuring you have a clear direction and some structure to the content you are creating and publishing you will be in a much stronger position when it comes to engaging and converting “leads”.

CONTENT RECIPE

1. Make sure you’re only sharing visually pleasing content (no pixelation/out of focus shots)
2. Make sure your language is consistent and engaging
3. Make sure your content has a purpose
4. Use link building or tagging to reach more people
5. Use the rule of thirds when taking a photo
6. White space is your friend!

Think about what you want to see in your feed… if its ugly you’ll keep scrolling, if its interesting you’ll engage.

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• Use videos, photos, and gifs – they’re visually pleasing  *see below for suggestions
• Share news, events, activities highlights, and celebrations
• Only post good-quality images!
• Share links from UNE, UNE Life, Clubs & Societies, and sources when you’re low on content – but make sure it’s relevant!
• When you do share content created by others –  Remember to tag them in the post too. If it is an individual’s content it’s best practice to request permission.
• Facebook and Instagram have rules about the text on imagery – usually, they will penalise you for this, as they will think it’s an advert. Aim for no text –  or a maximum of 30% text on an image and put all the other details in the text box.
• Stories typically receive the best engagement – try and post these most frequently and link them to something tangible, an existing post or a call to action. Like everything content – think of your aesthetics when you’re posting.
• Reels are generating the most reach. Explore templates to help guide what you create here.

Tone = Attitude | Voice = Personality

Your tone of voice is how you convey your message to your followers, it’s how you express how we feel and how it influences how they feel about the message.

Like branding, consistency in tone builds trust – trust builds engagement.

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• Make sure your tone of voice is consistent and that it speaks to your target market
• As a team decide on the personality and tone you’d like to share
• Remember you’re writing as the brand – use the words “We” not “I”, “Our” not “My”
• Don’t use this platform to offer personal opinions
• Remember to be respectful and inclusive with your language
• Consistency is key

By remembering these things your followers will feel they’re getting to know the club, society or organisation, which helps to build a sense of trust and familiarity.

Think about social media engagement like a long-term relationship…

It takes dedication, adaptability and forward-thinking. When you add these things together with a bit of thought you can ensure your relationship will happily last.

SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT IS

• Clicks (on the three little dots, scrolls in your photos, taps on a poll answer)
• Likes
• Comments
• Shares
• Direct Messages

TIP

• Use your stories to highlight and boost your static content
• Pin your best content to the top of the page
• When people like, comment or share your posts – make sure you reply!
• Like share and comment on like-minded pages – this will mean you’re seen in more places
• Create a response matrix to help you with talking to your followers.
• Your aim is to get someone to click anywhere on the post – so more than one line of text is great, use spacing to your advantage – using multiple pictures, gifs, and snippets of video are best!

NEGATIVE COMMENTS

• If you receive any negative comments – reply empathetically inviting them to email you (to get the conversation off your main page).
• Escalate negative comments – if a negative comment involves a student’s welfare or something that may concern UNE, your College Head, or UNE Life, screenshot the comment and alert the right person above.

Reach is the total number of unique people who see your content. Impressions are the number of times your content is displayed, no matter if it was clicked or not.

TYPES OF REACH

1. Organic =  number of times your content was displayed for free (ie in your news feed or on your page)
2. Paid =  number of times your paid content was displayed.
3. Viral = number of times content linked with your page was displayed or shared by others.  This includes liking, sharing or commenting.

TIPS

To organically increase your reach be sure to include

• Location tagging vary from post to post but always keep it relevant
• Tag relevant brands, groups, and others – not just everyone!
• Hashtags 

Hashtags are used for searchability – use existing hashtags for reach and try and incorporate one that is specific to your event or group for identity.

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• Capitalise for readability
• You can use up to 30 hashtags on Instagram. We recommend you include at least 15-20  in every IG post. Make these specific to your content/message and vary from post to post.
• You can use around 3 hashtags on Facebook.
• Add hashtags either as the first comment or use this tip to put them a few rows below your caption
• You can hide hashtags and actual tags behind graphics, text boxes, and images on Instagram.
• If you’re creating a custom hashtag – do your research and make sure no one else is using this tag, you can simply do a Google search for this or if they are using it just make sure it’s not inappropriate or contradictory to your purpose.

Official UNE #Hashtags

#UniNewEngland #UNELife #ActivateMyUNELife #AlumniUNE #ProudtobeUNE #TeamUNE
#UNEpeople #FeedTheStudents #TakeMeToUNE

CTA simply stands for a Call To Action, it’s an action point to be used across websites, in newsletters and on social – each social post should have a purpose, driving sales and awareness or people back to your original purpose.

CTA RECIPE

1. Make them Action-Oriented
2. Use Persuasive Text
3. Include Strong Visuals
4. Create a Sense of Urgency
5. Make them Easy to Find (include a shortened link)

Think short, snappy – engaging – they can involve emojis.

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• Each Facebook post should have a CTA
• CTA’s on Instagram are trickier, use your bio link and refer people back to this.
• Make sure your CTAs are engaging and that they vary
• Only one purpose or message at a time!
• Guide to creating social CTAs

Please note! Instagram doesn’t let you use multiple links, or hyperlinks from your text. Alternatively – use Linktree, this way you can add all the links you need to your bio (website, socials, blog, contact, etc) and in the copy of your Instagram post reference “Link in bio”

Deciding when to post on social media will vary for each account. This will change from time to time.

To find your best times go to:

• Facebook > insights > post
• Instagram > menu > insights

GUIDELINES

We would recommend thinking of your audience…

• If you’re trying to speak to the general community aim for 6am – 9am OR 6pm – 9pm
• If you’re trying to speak with students 11ap-3pm is best – think about when you spend most time online – this will typically be right for your student audience. Best times to post on Social Media – Sprout Social

It’s important to know that the algorithm changes from time to time.

INSTAGRAM

Instagram can determine what content you’ll appreciate the most and influence your news feed to prioritise your content.

These six factors shared by TechCrunch are:

• Interest: This is a prediction Instagram makes about how interested you’ll be in a particular post.
• Frequency: How often you use the app will determine what posts you see first when you open the app again.
• Following: The more people you follow, the less likely you’ll be able to see everyone in your news feed.
• Recency: How recently was a post published? This impacts when you’ll see a post in your news feed.
• Relationship: Who shares the post and your connection to them will be a significant factor in how often you’ll see their content. This is influenced by tagged photos, engagement, and even how often you direct message them.
• Usage: The time you spend on Instagram affects the content you see as well.

FACEBOOK

When picking posts for each person who logs on to Facebook, the Facebook algorithm takes into account hundreds of variables — and because it reads so much data it can predict whether a given user will Like, click, comment, share, hide, or even mark a post as spam.

More specifically, the algorithm predicts each of these outcomes with a certain degree of confidence. This prediction is quantified into a single number called a “relevancy score” that’s specific both to you and to that post. Relevancy can be measured by;

• Liking a post
• Clicking anywhere on a post
• Commenting on a post
• Sharing a post
• Hiding a post
• Marking a post as spam
• If or how the viewer has prioritised their friends
• News feed preferences
• Time spent on a post
• Video engagement — like turning on the audio, switching to full-screen mode, or enabling high-definition

Facebook’s algorithm is very, very complex, which is why you need to make sure you’re talking to your audience in the most engaging ways possible!

Scheduling simply means planning your social media activities so you’re able to achieve your goals and priorities in the time you have available. It can also help you balance and plan your workload.

TIPS

• How to natively schedule on Meta (Facebook and Instagram)
• Think about what you want to achieve  (today, this week or this month) to keep on track to accomplish your goals.

There are lots of scheduling tools out there – depending on budget and the time you want to dedicate to learning how to use a new platform.

BE REALISTIC

Set SMART goals for yourself

• Specific Defined and clear
• Measurable With specific criteria so you can measure your progress towards the goal
• Achievable Attainable, not impossible
• Realistic Within reach, and relevant to your purpose
• Timely Keep a clearly defined timeline, include a starting date and a target date (creating a sense of urgency)

As a Clubs & Soc’s member, you’re a representative of UNE Life, we have a few guidelines that we like you to stick by – this will help you, and help us build upon the student experience.

Download SM Policy

In the expansive realm of online communities, forging connections with like-minded clubs and societies holds the key to a vibrant and dynamic collegiate experience.

By actively seeking out groups that align with your club’s mission or share similar interests, you pave the way for collaborative endeavors, mutual support, and the exchange of valuable insights.

These connections not only enrich your own club or society but contribute to the broader tapestry of the university community.

Embrace the opportunity to connect with other clubs and societies and UNE pages, as it is through these shared networks that ideas flourish, events flourish, and a strong sense of camaraderie blossoms, enhancing the overall student experience.

Connect with the student experience social media pages here. 

SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT PLANNER TEMPLATE

A content strategy will help you hit your goals and plan ahead!

Social Media Content Planner

RESPONSE MATRIX TEMPLATE

By spending some time to create a response matrix, you’ll be able to communicate with your followers quickly and authentically.

Response Matrix Template

Connect with other UNE Socials

SPELLING & GRAMMAR

• Hemmingway Editor
• Grammarly

IMAGE SIZES

It’s best practice to create your images to the correct size, images can always be shrunk, but not enlarged.

Web images are measured in Pixels (px)
Print images are measured in mm, cm, inches

Dimension guidelines;

• Instagram images
• Facebook images
• Print images

DESIGN TOOLS

• Canva

FREE PHOTO EDITING TOOL

• Snapseed

FREE STOCK IMAGES/VIDEO/GIPH’S

• Unsplash
• Pexels
• Giphy

VIDEO EDITING TOOL

• KeinMaster
• Camtasia

LINK TOOL

• Linktree

FREE FONTS

• FontJoy
• Google Fonts
• DaFont
• Font Squirrel

MOCKUPS

• Place It
• Graphic Burger
• Mockup World

COLOUR TOOLS

• Coolors
• ColorZilla