• What are LMU’s primary social media channels?

    Loyola Marymount University’s Marketing, Communications, and External Relations department oversees an active social media presence across a number of platforms, with a focus on the following official university accounts:

    Scroll through LMU’s latest social media posts here.

  • Can I create a social media presence for my LMU college/school, department, office or center?

    Absolutely! However, if you add social media to your existing marketing channels please do it properly. That entails adhering to LMU’s University Web and New Media Resources Policy, which can be found on our Policies page, developing a content strategy and consistent posting schedule, and engaging with your audience (answering questions submitted to your pages, retweeting and sharing relevant posts, monitoring hashtags, etc.). In addition, ask yourself if creating a new social media account fills an untapped niche on campus; it might make more sense to align your social media efforts with an existing account (at the school or department level, for example) than building an audience from scratch.

    Here are some questions to ask yourself before taking on the responsibility of social media on behalf of your organization. New LMU social media accounts should be registered via this online form, for potential inclusion in the campus-wide directory. Note that MarComm requests login credentials to your accounts for the sole purpose that they are accessible in the event the primary administrator leaves LMU.

  • What are some resources that can help me optimize my social media presence?

    Consolidating your multi-platform social media efforts into a management platform such as Hootsuite or Sprout Social save you time, allow you to pre-schedule posts and enable you to monitor social conversations – based on your parameters – in one online hub. All have free and/or inexpensive paid plans with additional features.

    Each social media platform has its optimal photo and video size specifications that you should adhere to when posting content. Here is a handy image size “cheat sheet” for all major sites. To create layered graphics via a simple online interface, we recommend using Canva.

    In addition, Facebook, Twitter and its competitors are constantly enhancing and otherwise tweaking their products; Social Media Today provides news and updates of key changes in the social media space, and what this means for marketers.

    Finally, the Marketing and Communications team maintains a fluid document of LMU-specific social media strategies and best practices broken down by platform. Please contact Shelbey Galliher for more information.

  • How can I determine the effectiveness of my social media efforts?

    Each social media platform provides account holders with a wealth of metrics and analytics to chart performance; it is available either on native platforms (i.e., the “Insights” tab of your Facebook page, analytics.twitter.com) or through the social media management platforms referenced above.

    It is easiest to track social media performance on a monthly basis, via Excel or Google Sheets. The most important metrics are follower growth, number of engaged users (those who interact with your page and posts), total number of engagements (likes, comments, shares, retweets, etc.) and clicks from social media posts to your website.

    Having a high number of followers is not as important as having a highly-engaged audience; a Facebook page with 1,000 likes and an average of 400 fans per month liking, commenting on and sharing its content is much more valuable than a page with 5,000 likes but only 200 engaged users.

  • What about social media advertising and boosting posts?

    As all social media marketers know, a single post will never reach 100% of your audience. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc., all limit the organic reach of a post in hopes that brands will spend money for additional impressions. It is only recommended that you allocate budget for a boosted post if there is a certain measurable outcome you are seeking: Event attendance, fundraising, views of an article on your website, etc.

    In addition, it is possible to advertise with the intent of increasing your account following. When first launching a social media presence, it is advisable to allocate at least a modest budget to raise awareness of your new account and build an audience for it; there’s little point in creating content for posts if there are no users to see it. There are also organic ways of building a social media audience: Run a sweepstakes to incentivize new followers, or drive your constituents to your profile from other marketing channels, such as email newsletters.

    In the age of “big data” there are countless targeting options to ensure your social media ads are reaching a relevant audience. We suggest reading Hootsuite’s comprehensive guide to social media advertising before activating any campaigns.