“Just post it on social media…” this is a phrase that can drive social media managers up the wall. Social media has never been more important in sports, culture and overall life than today at this moment, so knowing what to do with that powerful platform at your fingertips has never been more impactful.
So, what do you do with a superpower like being in control of a brand’s social media? Well, I found myself in that place just over a year ago when I started my position at the University of Evansville. Coming into my role here at UE I saw a lot of potential for growth. The program had just gone through a complete rebrand and was putting resources in place to focus on more high-quality content.
All of this was great, but the question I asked myself and the external staff was “how do we get to where we need to be?” We had momentum from the rebrand and a promise of a new athletics season, but how do we use that to inform the world who UE is?
Within the first few weeks at UE I quickly realized that there was no planed structure to why and how things got posted to social media. Posting on social media was a check the box idea more than a proactive approach to brand management. This is not a knock to anyone that is/was at UE, but the department has never had someone that could devote time and skillset to creating those branding standards.
From August until March (when the world shutdown) UE social media made some amazing strides (100% because of the amazing external crew we have here) but we were still flying a little blind when it came to the purpose and goals of our social media. But at the same time, thanks to some success from our teams (taking down No. 1 Kentucky and all) we saw our social media numbers grow across the board.
Adding 4.3 thousand new followers 17.1 million impressions across our 11 Twitter accounts in 12 months we had figured out what works, but now we needed a plan.
So, over the spring and summer, my main goal while working remotely was to create the “UE Social Media Branding Guide” with the objective to have a living document that grows, and changes as social media does.
This guide went through a lot of different versions before I sent to anyone in at UE. It was my area to shape in create policy, so I wanted to make the first mistakes without too many eyes.
But here are the main things that I included in the UE Social Media Guide that we launched in August. (This is just what worked for us and for UE’s needs)
Goals: I lined out the overall goals of UE social media and how they related to the brand. I followed this up with setting up social media meetings with each coach to explain more fully what the goals mean and how they will help further the UE brand.
Resources: What logos, fonts, backgrounds, official colors and hashtags the coaches or anyone posting on social media should use. Also, I created a drobox with those resources.
Graphics and Video policy: At UE I’m pretty much a one-person shop when it comes to creating new graphics, so some teams create their own content. We have a policy that all graphics (really anything with a logo) and edited video posted on official UE social media has to be approved by our UE social media team. We also have a graphics request form that coaches can use to ask for graphics.
Social Media Best Practices: This is two pages of dos and don’ts when it comes to social media. Such as “never tag a company in a post with a student-athlete” and “read over your post before pressing send.”
Social Media Ban/Block Policy: This is just a written policy on when we block, ban or delete comments on our social media accounts.
Overall there is nothing earthshattering in this document. It is just that now these ideas are written down. There is a place that anyone posting on social media can look and know exactly what expectations there are and how they can meet them.
Social media branding is the cornerstone of an athletics department's success because it helps to fundraise, recruiting, university enrollment, ticket sales and so much more. So, I’m proud of this eight-page document that came out of the crazy time period that is 2020, because of the impact it will have on UE for years to come.
I’m also grateful for the opportunity to create these policies and the support I have from our AD and the entire UE external staff. I know that is not always the norm, especially for someone my age and in my position, so I will always be blessed for this chance at a school that has trusted me with their social media.
- Emily McMillan (@emily_mcm16)
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