Posting Content to Your Alumni Club’s Social Media Accounts

Like most alumni club leaders, you want to get maximum benefit any time you communicate with your alumni. But when you have a Facebook page, Twitter page, Instagram account, LinkedIn page and so on, WHEN do you find time to update them all? And WITH WHAT CONTENT?!  I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve I’d like to share with you.

Content Strategies For Your Social Media Platform

Before I get into what kinds of content to include on your social media, I want to share some strategies to use when determining what kind of content to post your social media.

• Facebook – Make sure the content is good quality including your upcoming events, club or university news and other items of interest to your alumni. Always include pictures with your posts. Text only posts don’t generate a lot of looks
• Twitter – Conversations and content move quickly on this platform so alumni may not see your post until later or at all depending upon traffic on their home page. The focus here should be on short, quick bursts of content  just 140 characters long. If you are a wordy person, you may have trouble meeting limiting your characters particularly if you are going to share an image or link with the text.   On the flip side, this can be a great platform if you want to encourage alumni interaction (and if you have Facebook Pages account which isn’t great for alumni interaction).
• Instagram – this platform is all about images and can be a great way to share pictures of your alumni, your events and University happenings. Use the built-in picture editor or PicMonkey to add text or edit the image before sharing.  Don’t forget to #hashtag like #crazy in your posts! Check out this article for how to use hashtags.
• LinkedIn – This platform is known more for its professional and business content than alumni news. Our club has a page and we limit our content to upcoming events, fundraising information, and when available, curated business and technology content from our University that we find on LinkedIn.

What To Post on Your Social Media

Now that you understand a little bit about what types of content will work on your site you can start collecting sources of content to post on your social media sites. The primary source of content for your social media accounts should be your club and the things you are doing.

• Make sure to always share upcoming events and club news on your social media
• Pictures! Are you holding a service or social event? Make sure you appoint someone to snap a few pictures and post them on your social media. Make sure to tag the people in the pictures so they can share with others (and help you get the word out about the club!)
• Video! Catch your group singing your alma mater. Schedule a Facebook Live event with an important alum. Share your football team’s latest hype video. Videos can create excitement and will be shared so others can view them and, just maybe, those viewers will start following you.
• Alumni content  Make sure your alumni know how they can post comments and content to your social media so they can engage other alumni in a discussion.
• Start a conversation or ask a question Some of the social media have tools that will allow you to create survey or pose a question. This can be a great way to get feedback from the alumni.

Curating Content For Your Social Media Accounts

Your club will be a great source of content but if you have the time and want to make your social media account(s) a true source of news for your local club, you may need to get content from other places. It’s not as hard as it sounds. Sourcing your content can be as easy as following some of your favorite University alumni or news outlets and reposting their content.  There’s no harm in sharing others’ content. That’s the whole point of it! Here are few places to get content:

• Other alumni clubs’ social media pages
• Your alumni association’s social media
• University or local newspaper’s websites
• The University’s  sports team(s) or sports celebrities
• Your own Google searches of topics of interest to your alumni

When to Post

Yes, there’s a logic to when you should post. Posting at certain times of the day can increase the chances of your post being seen and read. And, by the way, that time of day varies by social media account. Here are the times and rules for posting the most common types of social media platforms:

• Facebook – don’t post too frequently. Aim for at least 3-10 times per week .
• Twitter – Some experts recommend posting at least 5 times per day for greatest impact. That may not be practical for everyone so I suggest do what you can OR connect your Twitter page to your Facebook page so you get double the impact out of every Facebook post!
• Instagram – Post at least 5-10 times per week. You can also connect your Instagram account to your Facebook and Twitter accounts so a post there can be shared on 3 platforms at once.
• LinkedIn – Try to post 2-3 times per week but I don’t recommend spending lots of time here. Most people use LinkedIn for professional connections rather than getting club news and events.

Social media, when used to communicate with your alumni, can be a great way to share images and news about your University. Just remember, that you are up against all the other traffic on their social media platforms and with just a little strategy and planning you can ensure that your posts will get maximum impact.

Do you have questions about where to find content or when to post? Drop me a line!