Have you read Do You Need a Social Media Account? Here is what's next.

Read the Lamar University Social Media Policy.

It's the responsibility of each social media administrators to stay update to date with the university's social media policies and practices.

Set goals.

What are you trying to accomplish? After reading Section 1, you should have some idea of what objectives you’ll try to achieve with social media. Now it’s time to set SMART goals.

Assign an administrator.

Every account is required to have a minimum of two administrators. One must be a full-time staff (or faculty) member and the other should be the university social media manager. More administrators may be added when needed. Students should never be given access to a Lamar University affiliated account before notifying LU’s social media manager.

Request your account.

Request and register your account with the Department of Marketing Communications.

This:

• Allows the social media division to review your plans and help you find the best way and platform to share your content. 
• Puts you in contact with Lamar University’s Social Media Manager for future training and help.
• Protects your account from hacking or lost passwords due to employee turnover.
• Allows people to easily find your account once it’s added to the [online directory].

Snapchat accounts must NOT be created until after you have been contacted by someone from the Department of Marketing Communications. Snapchat usernames can be used only once and may never be reused, even if the account is deleted. To prevent the loss of a Lamar University username, all Snapchat accounts must be created by the university’s Social Media Manager.

Complete your profile.

Refer to the profile guidelines found in our social media policy.

Develop your content strategy.

State your goals, how you intend to achieve them, and develop your timeline. Once you’ve established a strategy, create your content and schedule when it will post.

Test your strategy.

Before launching your account publicly, test and populate content to your page for a few weeks while sharing it with a small group who can provide comments and feedback. By the time you are ready to share your account with the LU community, you will be comfortable maintaining it and new audiences will be able to see valuable content as soon as they follow.

Launch time!

Use integrated methods to promote your social media account by including the link in emails, printed content, and on your website. Notify other LU account administrators of your profile and create a plan to support each other. Collaborate with other established accounts and gain visibility by tagging them in your posts. 

Change it up.

Your social media strategy will never be fixed. You will notice some content is more popular while other content fails. You will see more or less engagement due to the time of day you post, the type of media you used, and the wording of your post copy. Pay attention to the insights and analytics provided to you by each platform and adjust your strategy based on your most popular content.