Workshop these questions as a team.

• Who is my target audience? 
• e. Current students, prospective students, parents, alumni, media, faculty, staff
• Differentiate your primary and secondary audiences.
• What is my purpose on social media?
• What do you hope to achieve on social media?
• e. Increased awareness among specific audience, student prospecting or recruiting, event attendance, reputation, constituent affinity.
• This will become the foundation of your strategy.
• What resources (time, funds, technology, talents) can my department commit?
• Do you have a staff member with time to devote to social media?
• We recommend budgeting one hour per day.
• Consider not only the posting schedule, but time to monitor and respond to your audience.
• Set aside an hour a month to dive into the analytics on your channels, see what worked, and benchmark your successes.
• Is your appointed staff member trained in communications and media?
• If not, are professional development funds available?
• Please connect with the UMC communications team for training and best practices.
• Where will you source your content?
• Do you have funds to commit to a social media management platform?
• UMC uses Sprout Social, and seats are $150/user/month. Contact UMC to learn more about using Sprout.
• If you will want to run contests or advertise campaigns, what is your budget?
• What defines “success” in my social media efforts?
• What are your key performance indicators (KPIs)?
• UMC looks at channel reach, growth, engagement rate (engagements/impressions)
• What channels should your department be on?
• Consider these questions when deciding whether you should create a new social media channel:
• What platforms does your target audience spend the most time on?
• What is the strength of each platform?
• What content do you have to share, and where will it best perform?
• Is there an audience interested in this content on this platform?
• Start small and sustainable, and scale in time as you grow your audience and flesh out your strategy.
• Loyola departments and organizations interested in starting a new social media channel are encouraged to reach out to UMC. Our social media team can make strategic recommendations based on audience, content, goals, and resources.
• Crawl, walk, run.