Social Media Best Practices

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General guidelines

  • Use as few accounts as possible and use them well. Aim to post regularly (3-7 times per week)
  • If an account is not used routinely, we recommend that it be closed.
  • For Twitter, do not retweet a ton of content at one time. Limit this to one to two retweets at a time. (Otherwise followers will unfollow or turn off RTs)
  • Do not share identical content on multiple accounts at once.
  • Be wary of handing over account control to undergraduate students
    • Use a review process if necessary
    • Establish check-in points each week to monitor content
  • Focus on spelling and accuracy of content
  • Double check dates before sharing information

Review Writing Best Practices Review Event Social Timeline

Recommended Platforms

  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Do Not Use

  • Snapchat

Images

Use high-quality images.

Pictures are organic to what students are posting and gets more engagement. Including student faces helps them connect with the content and can lead to tagging and increased engagement. Don’t over-edit images. Visit our Photography page for more information on accessing and requesting photos.

Using a graphic? Less is more.

Graphics should contain <20% text. Don’t post an entire flyer of information as a social media post. Break down the content into multiple posts and put the information in the caption or direct the viewer to a website for more details.

General image size guidelines

Review Canva’s Designs Size Guide for a breakdown of suggested dimensions for each platform.

Videos

Keep videos short. 1-2 minutes for long videos and 30 seconds for reels. Videos with dialogue should include closed caption.

Motion images can be created through Canva and Adobe Rush

Emojis

Don’t overuse Emojis. Suggested 4 maximum per post.

Appearance and meanings

Emojis can look different depending on the device used and may have multiple meanings. Utilize Emojipedia to verify emoji appearances and meanings.

Hashtags

Don’t overuse Hashtags. Suggested 1-2 on Facebook and Twitter and 5-10 on Instagram.

Make sure to #CapitalizeEachWord to avoid confusion.

Institutional Hashtags

#BamaStudentLife, #TodayAtUA, #RollTide, #UA, #BamaGrad, #UA25, #UA26, etc.