Optimizing Your Content for the Social Feed

The following guest post was written by Mike Petroff, digital content strategist, Harvard University. Content strategy typically starts with planning for and managing content on your own website. Words, images, videos, and other elements all fit within your carefully constructed design. But, what happens when people discover your content in spaces like Facebook and Twitter? How can we prepare our content to visually stand out when it … [Read more...]

Mine Your Archives for Content Gold

When considering how best to use social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, we are often thinking in real-time. What are people talking about right now? How can we communicate the vitality of campus life? How can we be proactive listeners and responsive publishers? However, one of the most intriguing ways to use real-time platforms comes from looking into our past. Many institutions are finding that highlighting archival university … [Read more...]

A New Content Creation Strategy: More Tanks

The Oatmeal often says things like no one else can, and this latest comic, decrying Facebook likebaiting and other "marketing douchebaggery," is no different. (Though it does remind us of Patrick Powers' insights from last fall about how no matter what changes Facebook throws our way, it's more important than ever to share awesome content.) So go read the comic. And then come back and let us know how you're incorporating cage-fighting nuns … [Read more...]

Storytelling on Facebook

Yes, Facebook's rollout of Timeline for brand pages has gotten an incredible amount of ink. Err, pixels. Whatever. It's gotten a lot of attention. As challenging as it can be to figure out yet another Facebook change, Timeline does offer some compelling ways to use Facebook to tell our brand story. By emphasizing an organization's history, Timeline allows us to demonstrate our brand identity as something that has been true and enduring over … [Read more...]

Creating a Social Media Style Guide

Style guides are essential partners in the creation of effective content. They help ensure consistency of tone, voice, brand, spelling and grammar, giving our content credibility and value. Rick provided a great breakdown of the elements of editorial style for the web last August. But what about social media? Since we can’t erect an editorial process around every individual tweet, status, comment or response, it is critical to have a style … [Read more...]