Brand execution guidelines
Optimizing content for publishing on social media maximizes the return on your social media marketing investment. This section provides an overview and quick tips on how you can successfully optimize how you share your content in social media.
ASU uses Hootsuite to publish and manage content to its core accounts. Learn more about the ASU Enterprise Hootsuite license, and if your unit qualifies for a seat.
These publishing guidelines have been created based on our existing brand guidelines and extensive analysis into strategies that have resonated with our audiences.
Each time you post, respond, launch, thank and connect with others on social media you are exercising our brand’s tone and voice. As such, you should always follow ASU’s writing style. Every time that our audience sees a tweet or a post, they are building an idea of what our brand means to them, and we should aim to maintain an identity standard regardless of medium.
For more information, make sure to visit ASU’s writing style and content overview section of the brand guide.
While it may appear as an efficient way to share the same messages across multiple accounts, this tactic can make it seem like you are not taking into consideration the nuances of each of your audiences (which is especially true if you manage multiple accounts on the same platform and you are using the same content for all of them, scheduled or posted at the same time).
This does not mean that you shouldn’t share the same stories across multiple social platforms — it means that you should strive to make the content feel fresh, either by changing a picture, the format (video or image?), or the text (maybe showcasing a different angle of the story) every time you share it. Changing your posts — even if it’s just slightly — also improves the chances that your content will be acted upon, since now you are giving your audiences a new reason to click or engage on your post, without seeming repetitive.
“More” is not always “better.” Different social platforms behave in different ways, and while it might make sense to post every hour on Twitter, that might be overkill for your audience on Facebook. Analyse how your audience reacts to different cadences, and adjust accordingly. Don't know where to start? This Rival IQ article shows what the ideal frequency per platform, per industry is (based on their analysis).
Different platforms reach different audiences. As such, you should use language that speaks to that particular audience (versus using a “one-size-fits-all” strategy). Phrases that work on Facebook will probably not work on LinkedIn. And use the right (versus same) hashtags for each platform (unless it’s a campaign hashtag that can be used in different platforms, like “#ASUgrad”). Spammy hashtags (e.g., “#likeforlike” or “#follow4follow”) might be very popular on Instagram, for example, but taken out of that environment and placed on a different platform, they will take on a whole different level of looking “spammy.”
When sharing links on social media, make sure that you optimize how your link preview will appear to your audience. Depending on the metatags on the website that you are sharing, link previews might not appear as you would like them to appear, so it is always a good idea to test if your link preview will appear so that you can optimize your audiences’ experience when engaging with your content.
Although not ideal for a quick fix, the best solution is to work with your web team to optimize the metatags for social sharing on your websites. This allows for the website to be optimized once, and makes sure that every time that a link is shared, you have control over how it will appear in social feeds, regardless of who shares it. Read more on how to optimize images for social sharing.
Facebook, Twitter and Facebook provide tools that allow you to check what a particular link will look like once shared.
Once you check what your preview will look like, you will have the option of continuing forward with the link as is, or changing how it looks. Depending on the platform, the process to change a link preview varies.
For the past few years, platforms have integrated scheduling tools into their native offerings, but how do you know when you should use a third party tool, or when to use the native platform?
Hootsuite is a great tool where you can centrally plan all of your posts and tweets. Unfortunately, some formats are not available to be scheduled directly on Hootsuite.
As a good rule of thumb, use Hootsuite to schedule:
More information about Hootsuite
Through Facebook Creator Studio, you can schedule posts for Facebook and, if your Instagram account is connected to your Facebook page, you can also schedule posts for Instagram. The benefit of using Facebook Creator Studio instead of a third party tool (like Hootsuite) is that it offers few scheduling options not available outside of the native platform.
As a good rule of thumb, use Facebook Creator Studio to schedule:
More information on Facebook Creator Studio
While you can schedule most content for Twitter from Hootsuite, there are some content types that benefit from being scheduled natively through Twitter Ads. Just as a reminder, even though this tool was created primarily for advertisers, Twitter Ads can be used to create and schedule organic posts.
As a good rule of thumb, use Twitter Ads to schedule:
Unlike Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn does not offer a native tool for scheduling posts. Regardless, there are still benefits to sharing some type of content directly on LinkedIn, versus scheduling it through a third-party tool (like Hootsuite).
As a good rule of thumb, use LinkedIn to publish:
Multi-image post: here, the assets that were created for this story get cropped in a way that’s detrimental to the user experience and how we portray the story on our channels.
End result: In light of how the images were cropped by LinkedIn, we switched tactics, and instead of sharing a multi-image post, we changed the image on the thumbnail preview and shared the story as a link post.
Use these deadlines as a guideline for content creation. As a caveat, remember that social media is a fast-moving communications channel, so be prepared to pause or remove any scheduled post in case of an emergency or a crisis, regardless if it’s the weekend or a holiday. If you are on vacation, make sure that someone will have access to the social media accounts in case content needs to be changed, or preempted.
| Day when content should be scheduled in Hootsuite/native platform, by 4 p.m. | Live date (when post goes live) |
|---|---|
| Monday | Wednesday |
| Tuesday | Thursday |
| Wednesday | Friday |
| Thursday | Saturday/Sunday |
| Friday | Monday/Tuesday |
This schedule works for any holiday that falls on a Monday, but for moving holidays (like Fourth of July, Veterans Day, New Year’s, Christmas) create a specific schedule that fulfills your needs. As a good rule of thumb, allow two business days from when you receive the content to when it is supposed to go live.
| Day when content should be scheduled in Hootsuite/native platform, by 4 p.m. | Live date (when post goes live) |
|---|---|
| Monday | Wednesday/Thursday |
| Tuesday | Thursday/Friday |
| Wednesday | Friday/Saturday |
| Thursday | Sunday/Monday |
| Friday | Tuesday/Wednesday |
Since the Thanksgiving holiday is typically the longest holiday observed by the university, feel free to follow this schedule in order to streamline content creation that is scheduled to go live during the holiday, as well as immediately after.
| Day when content should be scheduled in Hootsuite/native platform, by 4 p.m. (Week prior to Thanksgiving) |
Live date (when post goes live) |
|---|---|
| Monday | Wednesday/Thursday |
| Tuesday | Thursday/Friday |
| Wednesday | Friday/Saturday |
| Thursday | Sunday/Monday |
| Friday | Tuesday/Wednesday |