Creating a social media presence for your department, office, or organization can be a powerful way to achieve your goals. With a single image or compelling narrative, you can engage and inspire a diverse audience and share timely and important information.
To help you get started, here are some key tips and considerations.
For additional support, please contact Mary Leufstedt, Staff Associate of Web & Digital Communications, at mleufstedt@worcester.edu.
It takes time to manage a social media channel. Establishing an effective social media presence requires careful planning, well-defined goals, and dedicated time, effort, and resources. Maintaining these accounts is a continuous process, and on average, managing and creating content can take up to 10–15 hours per month. Ensure your team has the capacity to commit to this responsibility before creating an account.
Once you’ve assessed your team’s capacity, the next step is to decide on staffing. Identify who will be responsible for sourcing, creating, and posting content, as well as monitoring your accounts. This could be a team or a single main administrator. While students and interns can contribute, staff or faculty must oversee and serve as the main and backup account administrators.
The content you post on your university-affiliated account should be high quality and strategic to your goals, as well as the goals of the university as a whole. Even with the various tools and resources available for content creation, producing consistent, high-quality content requires a dedicated communicator who understands their audience and channel.
Content is expected to be uploaded to social platforms regularly. Best practice suggests:
Ensure your team has the resources to produce regular content.
To get a good sense of what it takes to manage your social media presence in the long term, come up with a content calendar and create one month’s worth of content. Write every post, create every graphic, and capture every photo/video. Then decide if this is sustainable for you and/or your team.
If your team is ready to dive into social media management, visit our Training Resources page for help with creating a strategy and content creation.
Before creating a new university-affiliated account, please
Administrators of official university-affiliated accounts are encouraged to take advantage of periodic training provided by the Communications and Marketing Office. Keep an eye on your email for more information about these opportunities.
Once your request has been approved by the Communications and Marketing Office, you may create a university-affiliated account. When setting up an account on behalf of your department or organization, create it with a shared departmental worcester.edu address and add yourself as an administrator (if applicable). If your department does not currently have a shared departmental email, requests for creation can be made through Information Technology.
Platforms which enable administrator positions:
Platforms which utilize shared logins:
All accounts should utilize two-factor verification when available. When enabling two-factor verification, choose your phone number wisely. If possible, provide a departmental phone number or a Google voice number.
