Platforms and Tools

Explore key elements of social media branding

Choose the most effective platform.

Each social media platform has its own unique style, privacy options, communities, tools, algorithms and functions. Having specific goals will help your team be able to choose the most effective social media platform.

Before establishing a new social media account, determine if this is a platform that will be able to be updated and managed on a regular basis. Taking on too many social media accounts can be overwhelming and finding content for different platforms may be difficult. Determine your department’s strategy before creating the account.

The only thing that stays the same in social media is it’s always changing. We recommend you review and stay up to date with each platform’s community guidelines, updated features and tools when posting information on behalf of BGSU. Keep in mind that dynamic content will not perform well if it is posted on a platform designed for a different audience than your content reflects. We encourage you to interact with other BGSU-affiliated social media platforms to increase engagement.

Know your social data

Knowing who your audience is and how they consume information and what content they relate most to is key to optimizing your content’s reach and impact.

Looking into your platform’s analytics will help you determine when your audience is most likely online, which will help you know when the most optimal time is to share content. Each platform’s optimal posting time will vary.

Platform Best Practices

Audience

Primary: Current students, prospective students, BGSU faculty and staff, media outlets, stakeholders, BGSU alumni
Secondary: Prospective parents and families, BGSU parents and families BGSU young alumni

Content

Trend-based, News-based, Informational, real-time, multi-platform posts
Interactive with campus partners and other BGSU accounts

Best practices

Twitter is the space people go to get their news and info at a “real-time” pace. It’s good practice to mix in trends, campus photos, and multi-platform posts with the news.

Frequency: Post at least daily, but 3-5 times a day is preferred

Profile dimensions

Profile image specifications: 400 x 400 px
Banner image specifications: 1500 x 500 px

Twitter resources:

Terms and Conditions for Twitter

Audience

Primary: BGSU parents and families, BGSU seasoned alumni, prospective parents and families
Secondary: Current students, prospective students, BGSU faculty and staff, donors, stakeholders across the state and region

Content

Public good stories, alumni success, BGSU families content, multi-platform posts, student opportunity stories, events, etc.

Best practices

Frequency: Post daily

Profile dimensions:

Cover photo specifications: 820 x 312 px
Profile image specifications 160 x 160 px

Pages vs. groups

For Facebook accounts created on behalf of Bowling Green State University, consider setting up a “page” rather than “group” profile. Individual pages allow users the option to become “fans,” offer numerous features and are specifically designed for organizations.
Groups are extremely time-consuming to moderate and often do not fall under the justifications required in your application.

Facebook Administrators

For consistency and a checks and balances system, we recommend that all sites have at least two administrators.
Student organizations should make sure current administrators train an incoming administrator whenever there is a change in leadership. It is recommended that the advisor of a student organization serve as one of the administrators.
Do not set up a “fake” Facebook account to manage your organization’s Facebook page. You must be connected to the page through your personal account. None of your followers will know who you are, unless you post as yourself. You will also receive notifications about activity on your page through your personal account, which is beneficial in responding in a timely manner. You can manage these notifications in your settings.

Facebook resources:

Audience

Primary: Current BGSU students, BGSU young alumni, BGSU faculty and staff
Secondary: BGSU seasoned alumni, donors, stakeholders across the state and region

Content

News stories
Career center
Life Design
Multi-platform posts
Guest speakers coming into campus
Companies coming to visit
Professional Development
President Rogers
Student success/opportunity

Best practices

LinkedIn is a more professional platform, so this is important to keep this in mind.

Frequency: post daily

Profile dimensions:

Profile image specifications 400 x 400 px

Pages vs. groups

For LinkedIn accounts created on behalf of Bowling Green State University, consider setting up a “page” rather than “group” profile. Individual pages allow users the option to become “fans,” offer numerous features, and are specifically designed for organizations.
Groups are extremely time-consuming to moderate and often do not fall under the justifications required in your application.

LinkedIn Administrators:

For consistency and a checks and balances system, we recommend that all sites have at least two administrators.
Student organizations should make sure current administrators train an incoming administrator whenever there is a change in leadership. It is recommended that the advisor of a student organization serve as one of the administrators.
Do not set up a “fake” LinkedIn account to manage your organization’s LinkedIn page. You must be connected to the page through your personal account. None of your followers will know who you are, unless you post as yourself. You will also receive notifications about activity on your page through your personal account, which is beneficial in responding in a timely manner. You can manage these notifications in your settings.

LinkedIn resources:

Audience

Primary: prospective students, current students, BGSU young alumni
Secondary: BGSU parents and families, BGSU prospective parents and families, BGSU Alumni

Content

Inclusive and purpose-filled
A mix of professional photography and “phone” images
Reels
Frequent story posts
Multi-platform posts

Best practices

Posting a mix between campus scenes, Public Good stories, Reels, and phone images. Tagging campus organizations is a great way to boost engagement.

Frequency: Post daily

Passwords: Make sure at least two people within your organization have your password. Update it regularly to ensure profile protection. We also recommend setting up two-factor authentication to prevent hacking.

Instagram resources

Instagram's Help Center

Audience

Primary: prospective students, current students, BGSU young alumni
Secondary: BGSU parents and families, BGSU prospective parents and families

Content

Based off trends, lighthearted, humor, takeovers, montages

Best practices

Frequency: every day, if not more. The more you post, the faster you will grow your audience.

Tips:

Always try to use a trending sound
Utilize filters in the app to increase reach
Utilize a mix of BGSU, college-related and trending hashtags
Be sure text in the video is legible and easy to read
Capture videos in your camera roll to create montages and videos in the TikTok app to participate in trending audios

Passwords: Make sure at least two people within your organization have your password. Update it regularly to ensure profile protection.

TikTok resources:

TikTok Help Center

University-affiliated social media accounts beyond Official BGSU and the BGSU Alumni Association should not create Pinterest, YouTube, Snapchat, Spotify or any other social media platform accounts without special permission from the Office of Marketing and Brand Strategy.

Content Creation Tools

Graphics

Create a free Canva account for access to hundreds of free graphic templates. Be sure to utilize BGSU colors and fonts and abide by our Brand Standard Guide in all designs.

Scheduling social media content ahead of time is a good strategy to ensure consistency across platforms. Below are some scheduling tool options your team can consider

Facebook offers the option to schedule content within the platform. This is sometimes viewed as preferable to using third-party services to schedule on FB because of a perception that Facebook offers less reach to content scheduled through other services.
Tweet deck for Twitter
Services such as Sprout Social allow one-stop scheduling for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, with a rolling cost structure depending on your use of the platform. If you are interested in exploring this cost, contact Brianna Blackburn at bblackb@bgsu.edu.

Photos

Photos often will outperform graphics on social media. Consider how you will create photo content on your social media pages. With smart phones enhancing cameras every year, many social media pages can get away with using photos mainly taken from your phone.
Utilizing user-generated content is a great strategy to increase community engagement on your social media and utilize photos directly from your audience. Be sure to always ask for permission before using someone else’s images.
Photos posted on social media should capture a moment. These photos should feel natural, candid and engaging. A captivating or real moment that is impactful and conveys a sense of movement, illustrates an individual or group’s objective, and most important, helps tell the story.
View the BGSU photography guidelines
When utilizing photos of BGSU leadership, ensure you have permission from the appropriate parties and be mindful of how you are portraying leadership on social media. If you are unsure about a photo, please contact the BGSU Social Media Team.

Measuring Success

Measuring success of your social media accounts is related to the overall goals of your account as well as the success of each individual post. First, you have to define your content goals. Here are a few examples:

Are you trying to increase audience engagement? Create a community?
Are you looking to increase participation at a specific event or program?
Are you hoping to grow brand awareness of your department?

Analytics and Reporting

Many social media platforms provide analytics within the app. It is important to consider what analytics are important to you (follower number, follower growth, engagement such as shares, likes, comments, link clicks, etc. and track your departments engagement and growth rate on social media in order to report on the data and measure how your engagement is contributing to your department’s strategic goals. Without tracking your analytics, you cannot measure the success of your department’s social media platform.

Updated: 03/14/2023 12:18PM