Social Media Strategy
A social media strategy is a communication strategy.
The William & Mary social media strategy contains many overlapping components:
1. Purpose
The general purpose of social media is to:
- reach your audience in a different way
- have a different sort of conversation
- engage people without expecting them to come to your website
- offer an authentic voice
At William & Mary, the purpose of social media is to:
- build community
- recruit prospective students
- inform and educate
- offer customer service to campus and the public
- support the academic mission of teaching, research and scholarship
- encourage earned media for the university
- support internal communication (e.g., with the on campus community)
- support a lifetime connection with alumni (which translates into engagement)
- reinforce the W&M brand and messaging
2. Values
The social media community at W&M values:
- active feedback from audiences and stakeholders
- conversation, the exchange of ideas, reflection
- user‐generated content
- content that is "passed on" via retweets, likes and comments
- the idea that W&M does not control what's said out there; we are not the only voice and that’s legit
- communication that offers a sense of place (a uniqueness for W&M channels that differentiates us from the other social media outlets)
- concrete and substantive dialogue
- fun! (the chance to show a culture beyond our reputation)
- innovation (we are a place of firsts; historic but cutting-edge)
- responsiveness to customers
- integration with wm.edu
- Social media links on departmental/unit websites
- Increased social media options within Cascade
3. Policy
General policy‐like language related to social media at W&M includes the following:
- we do not use or allow comments that contain hate language
- we do not allow posts that would be offensive to a reasonable person
- we do not use profanity, or placeholders of profanity, in posts
- we encourage reasonable dialogue and offer a balanced perspective and multiple points of view
- we are cautious about comments that are personal attacks against public figures, and particularly against members of the W&M community
See also: Social media policies and guidelines for general and emergency communication guidelines, info on state employee requirements, and additional resources.
4. Oversight
University Web & Design provides oversight for the use of social media on campus and consulting on the use of social media for strategic communication. Strategy, guidelines, policies and best practices are shared on this website and through the Social Media User Group (SMUG).
University Web & Design sponsors:
- SMUG meetings and listserv (socialmedia@wm.edu)
- other presentations, orientations and materials related to social media
- Social Stream, an aggregation of social media channels at W&M
- tools that integrate social media content with websites
Oversight from University Web & Design also includes:
- responsibility for participation in Social Stream; we include channels with an official affiliation with W&M — academic departments, programs, centers, administrative offices, libraries, museums, athletic teams, alumni groups and University Web & Design sponsored personas.
- monitoring activity (or inactivity) on channels that are highlighted in Social Stream
- contacting social media channel managers about inactive streams
- advice on the strategic use of social media for communications
5. Brand Management
When we use social media on behalf of a W&M office, program or organization, our channels should reinforce the W&M brand. Consider the following:
- recommended social media icon/profile photo templates are available
- when choosing a username, try to incorporate "wm" (for William & Mary) either as a prefix or suffix if possible (i.e. wm_admission or wmalumni)
- when naming your account, include a reference to W&M or William & Mary or include a mention in the bio or About section, as appropriate (note the use of the ampersand rather than the word "and")
- editorial quality includes limiting typos, grammatical errors and subpar content
- everything you post on social media has the potential to affect W&M’s reputation; enhancing or detracting from the institutional brand
- whenever possible, mention W&M (@williamandmary on Twitter and Facebook, @william_and_mary on Instagram) or use W&M hashtags in your social media posts, this adds legitimacy and ties your channel to a strong brand
6. Techniques
University Web & Design will continue to focus on the following:
- systematic use of content tied to central themes and messages of W&M
- measurement and return on investment
- experimentation with new social media channels
- crowdsourcing and curating user generated content
- enhancing live events with a social media component
7. Content
Content is king. Your social media channel is a communication channel. What you post is your content (photos, words, links). Make it great.
Goals related to content include:
- increasing user‐generated content (particularly for the W&M YouTube channel and Instagram)
- new features (quizzes, polls, live video, contests, etc.)
- daily posts of photos to W&M's Flickr and/or Instagram sites
- continued maintenance of the Social Stream social media directory
- increased use of hashtags by campus channels
- brainstorming new ways to use social media (e.g., social media feeds on wm.edu homepage; more personas, etc.)
