Do your social media accounts need a quick refresh?

Nicolle McMurray, digital media specialist from CSU’s College of Liberal Arts, offers some account maintenance tips to start 2019 secure and ready to share.

✅ Update account passwords. It’s best practice to update your passwords annually. Make sure each account has a unique password that uses a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters. Remember to store the passwords in a secure manner for other administrators to access. CSU requires two employees have access to the passwords for official CSU social media accounts.

✅ Review Facebook page admins. Since Facebook gives access through personal accounts, it can be easy to forget to update your page admins. Limit account admin access to current employees and interns. Clear out any past faculty, staff, or student interns who may still have access to your page.

✅ Refresh profile or cover photos. Is your profile picture representing you (and the CSU brand) correctly? Is the department name or Ram head cut off due to Instagram/Twitter’s round profile image? And when was the last time you updated your cover photo? Cover photos look different on mobile than desktop, so make sure you look at your page from multiple devices to make sure your photo choice is appropriate. Here’s a guide on cover photo sizes. You don’t need to update your cover photo frequently, just make sure that it is still representative of your department (e.g. not a photo of a faculty member who is no longer here).

✅ Review profile information: Is the “about” description on your Facebook page up-to-date? Could you streamline or freshen up your Twitter bio? Have you optimized your Instagram profile? Take a critical look at how you’re presenting your department to users who stumble on your accounts for the first time. Make sure the information is still accurate and that you have a call-to-action opportunity (i.e. website, phone number, email).

✅ Try a new planning and/or scheduling tool. It can be tricky to squeeze in time for social media – when juggling all of the other communication duties, it can feel like the easiest task to let slide. To combat this in 2019, try a new planning or scheduling tool to make sure you can get content going on a regular basis. Facebook has a native scheduler tool. Common Twitter tools are Tweetdeck (my preference) and Hootsuite. For Instagram, I like Later.com but other great options are Iconosquare and Hootsuite. As long as your account is a business account, you will be able to schedule posts from your desktop.

✅ Set goals and measure your success. Your time is limited. Set priorities for your department and some tangible goals for the next year. Maybe aim to grow your Instagram account and increase your use of Instagram Stories. Resolve to test out live videos more. Aim to post on a more regular basis. Pick goals that are realistic with the time you will be able to spend on social media. Also, consider tracking analytics on a monthly basis.

✅ Last tip, subscribe to the CSU Social blog (Thanks for the shout out, Nicolle!).