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Create a Social Media Strategy

Working from a comprehensive social media strategy allows you to create content with purpose, build meaningful relationships with your key audiences, and gather useful insights from your interactions. Learn more about how we develop content for each of our channels, how we build engagement with our followers, and the standards and policies that guide our decisions.

Mission & Goals

What is the purpose of your social media accounts?

  • Identify your mission and goals (recruiting students, raising money, empowering faculty, etc.).
  • Select platforms based on objectives and audiences.
  • Decide what kind of content you’ll post. Think through where the content will come from and how often you will share it.
  • If you need additional support or guidance, reach out to the FAA Office of Communications and Marketing for guidance as you develop your strategy.

Content Creation & Strategy

There are many ways to go about managing social media accounts, but having a sustainable strategy using tools and resources that you have access to can help create a streamlined process for keeping your audiences updated and engaged. The following are some recommendations for getting started.

Building out a social media content calendar can be a game changer for your social strategy. It can help you brainstorm ideas, stay organized, improve your posting consistency, and even identify and execute more ambitious campaigns.

You can use whatever tool works best for you (more on tools later). Decide what content you want to post during the next month, semester, or year, and list them out on a calendar. Include posting dates, links that go to more information, and imagery you may want to post with it. You can always add more content later on. Building out the schedule is the essential first step. While this takes time, it will save you lots of time and brainpower later when you need to post and have an entire calendar of ideas to work with.

As a unit of the University of Illinois there are likely many events, announcements, and exciting news items to share out that are specific to your faculty, students, alumni, and staff. Posting topics might include:

  • Upcoming department/unit events and announcements
  •  University-wide or college-wide celebrations like homecoming, commencement, new student welcome (or something specific to your unit)
  • Faculty, student, and staff successes like publications, awards, presentations, etc
  • News that relates to the industry/field
  • Monthly themes or celebration days that suit your unit (i.e. World Theatre Day)

There are a variety of tools available to help manage and maintain social media accounts. Using tools is optional, but it is a way to optimize your social media presence and workflow.

While calendars help keep your social goals on track, scheduling tools allow you to pre-schedule your posts and have them automatically posted to your accounts at the date and time you have scheduled them for. So, you can create and schedule posts when you have the time rather than when they need to go up. Here are just a few popular options:

Strategies for Building Engagement

  • Post frequently – at least 3 times a week for most platforms – this keeps your account relevant and in people’s feeds
  • Try to always include media with your post (image, graphic, or video) and add a link where people can find more information
  • Find and follow allied accounts or partners
  • Tag other accounts in your images and posts
  • Engage with other accounts (like, reshare, or even comment when appropriate)
  • Respond when it makes sense. Respond to real DMs (that are not spam) in a timely manner.

Data, Metrics, & Analytics

Data is a powerful tool that can help you guide your messaging and your connection with your online community in a meaningful way. It can help you understand your audience, both demographics (who they are) and how they engage.

FAA uses Meta Business Suite Insights to download and compile analytics from Facebook and Instagram. We then create monthly reports that help us understand how we engaged with our audiences that month, and what content worked well and didn’t work well. It helps inform our future posting strategy.

If you have questions about how to gather your data or how to interpret/analyze the insights, reach out to the FAA Office of Communications and Marketing.

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