10 Digital Tools to Make Your Life Easier as a Social Media Manager

Here's a list of great digital and social tools to make your life easier as a social media manager!

• Hootsuite - analytics/monitoring platform 
• Enhance - App from Hootsuite for editing photos with watermark
• Canva - graphic design templates 
• Google Docs - Great for social calendars 
• Storify - Storytelling
• Boomerang - Video app 
• Layout - Photo Collage app 
• Repost - Great for reposting/sharing Instagram photos 
• Snapseed - Photo editing
• Facebook Pages - App for Facebook Page administrators/editors

Instagram Direct or Snapchat?

Instagram recently introduce Instagram Direct, their new feature to send disappearing photos and videos to groups or friends within the app. As you may recall, this feature is very similar to the original premise of Snapchat. Snapchat began as an app to send disappearing photos and videos to friends, before later incorporating the concept of Stories. Instagram has introduced these components in reverse order, continuing their insistence to look strikingly similar to Snapchat.

From my early experiments with Instagram Direct, you cannot choose the length of the photo you set as your Story or send to a friend. In Snapchat, you're able to choose it's length between 1 and 10 seconds. This is frustrating if you're sending a photo to a friend that requires them to look a bit longer. Several friends responded that they didn't have enough time to see an Instagram Direct photo I sent them.

While the lack of time length control is frustrating, the ability to send to groups is convenient within Instagram. You can develop groups of people to send photos or videos to, which are saved and only require one click to later send to that same group. You can also send a snap to multiple people in Snapchat, but those recipients have to be selected individually each time.

The ability to send content directly to individuals or groups may not directly influence your social media strategy at a higher education institution, but it's definitely something to consider as you analyze how your audience uses both apps. Where do you want them to view your university's content (most likely in the Stories feature of both apps)?

Social Analytics Platform Review

When I was shopping and pricing various analytic platforms a year ago, many of the top brands such as Brand Watch and Hootsuite quoted me with enterprise accounts for at least $12,000/year. I don't know about you, but our university doesn't have that kind of money to spend on one platform for only a year! We ended up going with Sprout Social last year, which ended up being about $89/month. It had some positive features to it, but we still couldn't do some things as effectively as we wanted, for example, monitoring was not easy in Sprout Social.  This year, the University of Nebraska system has a system-wide Hootsuite Enterprise account, meaning each individual using the account is a single seat as part of the the overall system's account.

The streams in Hootsuite are very useful to monitor many accounts and search queries at once. This allows you to monitor other campus accounts, in attention to mentions, and listen to social posts from certain locations, and hashtags. You can like, retweet, or respond to any of these posts directly in Hootsuite. The streams may be my favorite part of Hootsuite! You're also able to publish and schedule content here as well.

The campaigns have been great as well, as it enables us to create a number of different social features such as curated content streams or contests. These can be displayed or a variety of platforms, from embedded on a website as we have here: unmc.edu/iamunmc, to a big screen at a graduation ceremony.

The analytics and insights offered from Hootsuite are very in-depth as well, giving us a great look at our metrics across a variety of platforms. You can download customized reports as well detailing whatever data you wish. I would definitely recommend the platform to any institution, especially if you can obtain it for your who system and have several users split the cost.

Using Storify for Storytelling

Using Storify for Storytelling is a great way to show a series of social media posts... perfect for displaying Instagram Takeovers, which were mentioned in one of my posts last week! Here is a Storify covering an Instagram Takeover I did on the Higher Ed Experts account, showing a day in my life at UNMC, leading up to the Higher Ed Social Media Conference next week. How could you use Storify for storytelling at your institution?

Instagram Student Takeovers

Instagram student takeovers are a great way to showcase a day in the life of a student at your university. I started Instagram Takeovers at UNMC on a weekly basis about a month ago, and they've been going very well so far. The mission is to show the world what a day in the life of a UNMC student looks like.

But how do you implement this tactic without giving up control of your school's social account? Instead of establishing temporary passwords for each student, the students send me all of their content (4-6 photos and captions) and I post it to our Instagram account. This allows me to be the filter for all the takeover content, to ensure that all the posts are appropriate. Check out the further guidelines and rules I have in place below. I send these out to each student participating in the takeover each week.

Guidelines:

• Show UNMC love! Show off your school pride.
• What should the captions say? Write the captions in first person, as if you are actually taking over the account. 
• Use the UNMC social team as a resource. 
• Photo rights: We want to show the world what you’re doing, so your photo may be shared by others on other platforms. 
• Tag other accounts.
• Hashtags to be used: #IamUNMC, #TakeoverTuesdayUNMC
• Have fun! 

 Rules:

1. Send appropriate content only. No alcohol or drug use (Not in any capacity). If you send us a potentially inappropriate photo/video, we will contact you about replacing the photo. Your photos can be of whatever you want that depict your life at UNMC, but keep the photos and captions positive and appropriate. No alcohol or drug use (Not in any capacity). If you send us a potentially inappropriate photo, we will contact you about replacing the photo. 
2. Get verbal permission. If you’re taking pictures of your friends, classmates, professor, etc. GET PERMISSION from them to post this on UNMC’s public Instagram account. Every time. Even if you don’t think it’s necessary. (Unless they are unrecognizable in the photos, i.e. back of their heads, far in the distance, etc.)
3. Introduction and Conclusion. Don’t forget to introduce yourself in the first photo. Also wrap up your final photo/video in a way that is a clear indication that your Takeover is finished (through the caption). 
4. Order of photos. Please note what order you would like the photos to appear. It works best if it corresponds to how your day happens chronologically, starting in the morning. I can post the photos anytime throughout the day, whatever makes the most sense with your Takeover depending on your photos. (Breakfast would be during breakfast, for example) We typically get more engagement in the late afternoon or evening though. 

The best times to post on social media for higher education institutions

What are the best times to post on social media throughout the week at a university or a college? Based on my experience at UNMC, here is what I've found!

Essential Social Media Skills

Unfortunately, social media is often a small part of many professionals' jobs in higher education, as they may be expected to manage college or department accounts without much experience.

I've learned that patience is an important skill needed to thrive as a social media professional in higher education if advising campus stakeholders is part of your position. As the only professional working specifically in social media at UNMC, educating others on campus about social best practices is part of my job. This responsibility can call for a significant amount of patience, as others' prior experience with social media can greatly vary. Many individual may not use social media in their personal lives, so the idea of social content development and management does not come as naturally as it does for others who use it frequently. It's crucial that these smaller social accounts still adhere to your brand's social guidelines in order to project a consistent image for your university, so your patience and guidance as their mentor is very important.

Time management is also a crucial professional skill needed to thrive in this industry. It's easy to be pulled in several different directions at once when working in social media at a higher education institution, especially if you are on a small team. Many tasks in social media are brief compared to long-form projects like video editing. It is so important to have a strategy in place as to how you will tackle these tasks effectively and efficiently, as they are all key to your university's social media plan, but easy to lose track of.

Social Media Challenge: Community Management

I'm going to cover one of the challenges of working in social media for this post. Community management can be a challenging part of my job as the Social Media Specialist at UNMC. We are a professional health sciences academic institution, focused on educating future health professionals. Our hospital partner, Nebraska Medicine, resides on our main campus, offering amazing clinical opportunities for our students and faculty. There is a misconception in the Nebraska community though, that UNMC is the hospital, when it is technically the university. In normal conversation, calling the hospital "UNMC" is not a big deal. But on social media, we often get positive and negative comments and reviews on UNMC about the hospital's care from Nebraska Medicine's patients. It can get confusing when there is so much overlap between UNMC and Nebraska Medicine, but Nebraska Medicine has their own social media presence and team. So community management can be a challenge as I strive to make it clear who UNMC is through our social platforms. Fortunately, I am able to deflect many comments from patients to Nebraska Medicine's team, but I always emphasize the difference between both organizations to these misguided individuals.

Furthermore, we also receive regular inquiries about our academic programs through UNMC's social media accounts. This can be stressful because as social media community managers, it's easy to assume that our response should be immediate. But I often don't know the answer to these questions from prospective students, and in order to accurately respond, I must seek assistance from others on campus. It's definitely acceptable to tell those who inquire for more information about your university that you are gathering details and will respond soon. This lets the individual know that your school isn't ignoring the inquiry, but cares to take the time to collect the right information before responding.

#SnapchatStorytelling

I loved attending a session presented by Yusuf Omar on the effective use of Snapchat at the Mobile Me & You Conference this weekend. 

The conference took place at the Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications in Chicago, IL. The conference focuses on mobile-first content in journalism and communications.

Omar is building the world largest’s mobile journalism team at the Hindustan Times, where he empowers over 750 mobile journalists to further the Hindustan Times’ success on small screens.

“Snapchat is becoming the biggest news outlet in the world, and is the fastest social app with more video views than Facebook,” Omar stated.

The future of content will be aggregating thousands of cameras, Omar explained, but Snapchat is already doing it. He also clarified that citizens are the reporters, and Snapchat is curating the content, making them the journalists.

Defining your purpose is crucial, according to Omar. The content on Snapchat must be exclusive and full of personality, giving your audience something that is not offered on other platforms.

He explained that Hindustan Times is utilizing Snapchat to hide the identity of individuals for sensitive stories with topics such as rape and sexual abuse. Victims use the filters from Snapchat to mostly disguise themselves while still giving themselves personality through their eyes and the filters.

He predicts that Snapchat is moving toward using their Discovery platform more, which is a professional segment of the app that delivers polished content from publishers on a daily basis. Making Discovery more open to consumers would allow for new types of content through citizen reporting.

Omar also sees Snapchat excelling at hyper local news, where they can build a story around snaps for a local event. Snapchat is already doing this in some respects, but the opportunity to grow in the area is significant. Snapchat is very secretive about their next moves as a app though, keeping the public mostly in the dark about what’s coming up.

Mobile Conference Recap!

I had the pleasure of attending the Mobile Me & You 2 Conference in Chicago, IL this weekend, learning about the latest innovations in mobile media. Several graduate students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln were able to attend, as UNL was a sponsor of the conference. 

Andy Boyle, of NBC Digital, and Kurt Gessler, Deputy Editor of Digital News at Chicago Tribune, presented at the conference at the Medill School of Journalism, Media and Integrated Marketing Communications in Chicago, IL on October 29, 2016. 

Boyle and Gessler presented about how to evaluate your new mobile app or product. “You need to have a plan. What is success? What is failure? How do you define success? Is it traffic? Impact? Money? Ads served? Downloads? Subscriptions?” asked Boyle. He explained that you generally need to know your metric for evaluation first before proceeding. Boyle stated that the ultimate goal for most project-level work, though, has to be impact.  

“Don’t assume you know who the audience is or what type of mobile device they are using,” emphasized Boyle. He gave an example of this when the Chicago Tribune thought they knew their audience didn’t use tablets, only to find out 50% of the app’s use was on tablets.  

Boyle and Gessler also offered more advice to the audience about mobile apps, such as the importance of giving fewer decision options to your audience, and updating your applications and website because the digital space changes so quickly.

They also talked about how crucial it is to offer your craziest ideas first, they don’t need to be grounded in reality. Pitch the ideas and other team members will think how they can build on it. Don’t be afraid to fail due to the risk that management could say “no” to an idea. To avoid rejection, getting buy-in from executives early on can help garner that support in advance.

Boyle closed the presentation with a quote from Bob Woodward on the timely topic of working with management to move ideas forward: “All good work is done in deviance of management.”

Tip of the Day: Layout Layout Layout!

I've had some people ask me about the collages I share on UNMC's Instagram, and how I make them look so clean, without an app's watermark. I use Layout, an app developed within the same family as Instagram! It's FREE, super easy to use, and you can incorporate up to nine photos in a Layout collage. You can move the photos around, flip or mirror them, and add borders (like the collage below), before syncing it with Instagram to share. I would highly recommend it!

Fruit vs. Med Students: A Comparison Story on Different Types of Social Media Managers

I formally began my career in social media by interning at an advertising agency. I worked over 40 hours a week managing the social content for my client, Cuties Clementines. At least eight people were working on the client team at any given point, and most of those individuals worked on social content. My position was a catch-all "Swiss Army Knife" role, serving as a project manager for Cuties' social media content, monitoring Cuties' social platforms, listening to the social conversation, engaging with consumers, shooting photos, writing copy, etc. I loved the variety that every week brought. We were expected to develop original content daily for Cuties' Facebook and Twitter platforms, which usually required a significant amount of time to concept the ideas and design them. Our main target audience was moms, buying healthy foods for their kids. Working in an advertising agency on a national client like Cuties was stressful at times, but it was so much fun. We were moving so quickly, constantly brainstorming new ways to engage moms with the brand, whether it was through recipes and crafts involving Cuties, or Twitter Chats or contests.

Working in higher education social media now at the University of Nebraska Medical Center has been just as enjoyable but significantly different. As the Web Content/Social Media Specialist, I am responsible for the social media strategy, content, and execution for all of UNMC's primary social platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Instead of working on a team of 6-8 people on social media content, I am now primarily working alone, with an intern. Being fully responsible for UNMC's social presence, as well as social listening, monitoring, engagement, paid content, etc. can be a lot to juggle, so it's important be organized, self-motivated, and capable of brainstorming without a team around you. Since I'm no longer producing content based on a product, like clementines, my role as a strategist is different as well. Social media is more of a public relations initiative at UNMC, continually engaging with our community and informing them about the great things happening at UNMC.

How have your experiences in higher education differed from outside academia? What has helped with your transition? Let me know in the comments below!

Tip of the Day: CANVA

Have you heard of Canva? It's this week's Tip of the Day because of how easy it makes your life as a Social Media Manager! Check out all these design templates available to you, and it's all for FREE! So many design templates and various scenarios ready to be tweaked to meet your needs. You can also customize the fonts and colors to match your brand standards. Using Canva is very user-friendly. Don't have the time or skills for Photoshop or InDesign? Have no fear, Canva is here! You can set up an account and use all of the capabilities for free, and purchase stock photography for only $1 per photo! This is truly a lifesaver for those working in social media, when our social media plans call for well-designed graphics so regularly. Check it out! canva.com

#IamUNMC: A Community Hashtag

Incredible work happens everyday at UNMC. But, it can be challenging to replicate the excitement I hear and see daily on campus through social media.

When I became the Web Content/Social Media Specialist and began managing UNMC's social media presence at the beginning of the 2015-2016 academic year, I wondered how I could engage students to be loud and proud on social media about the UNMC experience.

The answer: An on-going community hashtag campaign, #IamUNMC.

Whether students are studying in a lab, working on a group project, or skating on the ice rink, including "#IamUNMC" in their Twitter and Instagram posts has become a great way for students on all of our campuses to let their UNMC pride shine. An on-going community hashtag like this is a great way to curate social content about your school.

College of Dentistry student Olivia Rauschenbach said #IamUNMC is a fun way to connect with students on other UNMC campus. "It's encouraging to relate via day-to-day activities with students who, like you, are pursuing their dreams in the medical field."

The impact is best seen in the volume of #IamUNMC posts. I love checking out the photo stream at unmc.edu/iamunmc where all the posts are displayed, with photos shared from Hawaii to the New York City marathon!

College of Allied Health Professions student Lauren Akahoshi said the photo stream also said the photo stream also provides prospective students with a peek at campus life. It "adds so much more liveliness to the UNMC image. It shows that UNMC is much more than just medicine and school. There are so many other things that happen here on a daily basis."

Using #IamUNMC also gives students a sense of unity, recognizing that they are a part of something greater.

College of Nursing student Lyndsay Thornton said she values that cohesiveness. "I've bounced around many schools obtaining pre-requisite courses, so I've never had the feeling of belonging anywhere. UNMC and this campaign make me feel like I finally belong to something!"

The Do's and Don'ts of Facebook

Facebook can be a complex world to navigate for higher education institutions. Here are some tips I've learned since leading the University of Nebraska Medical Center's social media presence over the last year. What tips do you live by when managing Facebook for your institution? Share in the comments below! 

We are live!

Live video streaming has become a hugely popular piece of social content among organizations in 2016, especially at higher education institutions. The opportunity to share what we are doing with everyone we know right now through video is unprecedented, but was a matter of time when observing the digital landscape. The personable connection that we are able to establish with an audience through this format is incredible. From Q&As to events, the possibilities with live video are endless and so valuable in order to connect to our communities.

When Periscope launched last year, it caused large and small businesses to consider how to integrate live video into their social media strategy. Facebook Live then launched last spring, which has greatly increased the amount of users and uses for live streaming. The circumstances we are live streaming have evolved too, starting from the top, down. This weekend I watched Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg live streaming from his backyard, where he was grilling ribs with friends in anticipation of the Presidential Debate. I expected him to have a distinct purpose for the live stream, some announcement or conversation planned. I was surprised to discover that he didn't have a hidden agenda, he was simply live streaming to showcase the variety of situations users can connect with others through streaming. After introducing his dog and friends, rotating his ribs, and giving shoutouts to commenters around the world, he signed off to eat before the debate. This Live Video garnered over NINE MILLION views. Granted, 82 MILLION people follow Zuckerberg on Facebook, so nine million views on his live video doesn't seem as extreme in perspective. But as Zuckerberg noted, "THIS is what Facebook Live Video is for!" Which caused me to reflect, is it? What is, and what isn't, live streaming for? Does it depend on the live streamer, and the audience? 

I have live streamed several different scenarios at the University of Nebraska Medical Center through Periscope and Facebook Live Video. Periscope worked well at first, especially because it integrates into Twitter so well, but because our community is more prominently on Facebook, Live Video was highly anticipated. Once the feature was launched, Facebook announced that it would give priority to Live Video, an added incentive to use the platform over Periscope and Twitter. Our first Live Video on Facebook was our Match Day ceremony in March, which reached 50K people, with almost 5K views. With less than 120 medical students matching at the ceremony, this live stream was a success as we were able to reach a large amount of people and keep their attention for an average of almost five minutes.

Most of our following Facebook Live Videos has been at events on campus, but there are so many situations where live video could fit into the social strategy for higher education institutions. Today I live streamed at a grand opening ceremony, using the Switcher Studio app for the first time. This app allows you to switch between multiple camera angles on several devices, enhancing the viewing experience without adding large production costs on your part. The user experience is a little confusing, but once you get it up and running, it’s very effective to fully capture an event from various vantage points. All devices must be on the same WiFi network in order to work correctly, and the app has to be purchased beyond the seven-day trial. Instead of the default square frame offered by Facebook, Switcher Studio streams your full frame in landscape model. I would definitely recommend it if you have the time to test it out beforehand! 

How are you effectively incorporating live streamed video into your social media content at your university? What were the results? Tell me in the comments below!