Go West. It changes everything.

UWG Social Media Toolkit

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It’s time to spread the word. Social media is one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to reach our audiences. People today are digital savvy. Having an active and strategic presence on social media is essential to meeting them where they are.

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University of West Georgia’s social media goals: • raise engagement• grow followers• post more consistently and strategically• leverage social to achieve institutional goals

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YOUTUBE: YouTube has long been the video archive of the internet. Today,

Generation Z is all about it. They rely on it for everything from a good laugh to the latest news. It’s especially popular with young men who are a bit less likely to be on other platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Bring the campus to life on YouTube in myriad ways. Post videos about campus culture, the classroom experience, student life, research, you name it.

TWITTER: Short and snappy is the name of the game. With only 280 characters (upped

recently from 140) at your disposal, being concise and clever is an art. Although its usership is less than Facebook, its extremely public nature allows people to see posts without being active users. Hashtags were popularized by Twitter and are a great tool for this site. Twitter is a high-volume site; post often.

FACEBOOK: The social media giant offers a great space to give a little more than you

would on other social accounts. There is no word limit, but moderation is still key. Most people have a Facebook account – even grandma. Use hashtags to help build brand awareness. Video content is king on Facebook. Upload videos often and when possible, go live.

LINKEDIN: LinkedIn is a great place to establish UWG departments/faculty as a

thought leaders and to engage with professional audiences. Use LinkedIn to post articles and share stories that reflect the University’s expertise and that could catch the eye of prospective talent.

INSTAGRAM: It’s all about creativity. On Instagram, users feels like professional

photographers. It’s very popular with younger generations who use it (too often) to take selfies. Hashtags are commonly used on Instagram; use them freely, but don’t overdo it. Post your best photography and video of all kinds. Links won’t work in Instagram posts, so focus on posting great content that will make users eager to learn more about University of West Georgia on their own.

SNAPCHAT: Snapchat is extremely popular with teen and young adult audiences. It’s

used to share photos and short videos privately and temporarily (disappearing after a set amount of time) with friends or on public Snapchat Stories. The Snapchat Story can capture the essence of campus in a curated way and be shared with followers. The Story is wiped clean after 24 hours, so update it daily. Snapchat Geofilters allow followers to take branded Snaps to share with their friends and are a great way to foster campus spirit.

First things first: Know the platform.Most social media networks have a lot in common. Yet there are some notable differences:

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GO LIVE. Bring the UWG student experience to life with videos, photography, and even live videos. Focus on unique research projects, experiential learning, study abroad, and other active and highly visual instances that illustrate the powerful and holistic opportunities students have at UWG.

LET PEOPLE KNOW. Take every opportunity to encourage stakeholders to engage on social media. People can’t use our hashtags or be part of our social media campaigns if they don’t know about them. Publicize our social media channels through other media (website, print materials, institutional social channels, etc.).

MAKE IT COUNT. Choose the best content. Not every news item is post-worthy. Strengthen the Go West brand with examples worth sharing. Show off great research, impressive student projects, and how the University of West Georgia is making an impact. No boring. No commonplace. Go after stories with oomph and aha.

GIVE A LITTLE. People love free stuff. Use offers, contests with prizes, and giveaways to drum up excitement and engagement.

MAKE PEOPLE FEEL GOOD. When people mention, follow, and engage with UWG on social media, reciprocate! Show users we’re paying attention. A simple thanks for a like or mention, or returning a follow makes users feel good about engaging. They’ll be more likely to do it again. We can’t reciprocate every little thing. Use your best judgment to stay engaged with our followers.

SHARE THE LOAD. Don’t put the burden all on yourself. Not every post needs to be original content. Share articles, posts by other accounts, and other curated content. This shows that we’re attuned to the world around us.

ASK QUESTIONS. Don’t make it all about what we think and what we know. Ask our followers their opinions and thoughts. Give them a chance to talk about themselves. People like that.

BRING PEOPLE HOME. Social media channels are launch pads for directing users to our other spaces (the website, events, etc.). A more active social presence will help bring new users to the website, notify people who may not have heard about our events and happenings, and broaden the reach of UWG stories and facts.

PRESS PLAY. Post more videos. People want content that moves. Give it to them. Share student experience videos, short campus spirit videos, slideshows of photography, or even an occasional silly GIF. On Facebook, upload videos directly to get the autoplay effect. Links from YouTube or Vimeo won’t autoplay, making users less compelled to watch.

PLAY TAG. Try to include a hashtag (#) and/or a mention (@) in all of your posts. This adds another layer of interactivity and is the most effective way to build social relationships and get more eyes on your post.

TAP THE TRENDSETTERS. Establish a group of social media ambassadors to get the ball rolling. Ask them to respond to questions, leave comments, and like and share UWG content they come across. Pick students, faculty and staff who are already known for being brand ambassadors on campus and who are social media savvy. Don’t be too prescriptive. Worse than no engagement is engagement that feels contrived. Let your ambassadors do what they do well and bring their own flair.

Tactics for raising engagement.

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Tactics for growing followers.

LINK IT UP. When featuring curated content on social media, make sure we point followers back to the original source with URLs. Shorten links through bit.ly and Hootsuite. When you share links, make sure you include a photo to catch users’ eyes. On Facebook and LinkedIn, delete the URL once you’ve pasted it in and it has loaded. Don’t worry, your content will still be there.

GO VIRAL. Okay, this is not so easy. But we’re doing some amazing things at UWG that could really catch people’s attention. When we have truly unique and groundbreaking news, we need to invest time and energy in promoting those stories so that they might have a chance to catch on. A good start: bold headlines, strong hashtags, epic imagery.

JOIN THE CLUB. Lots of social trends are globally popular, like Throwback Thursday (#TBT). Join in. Show followers that we’re in-the-know. Take a more active approach to social media by participating in conversations that are currently trending.

HAVE A HASHTAG. Hashtags are a great way to steer conversations. When used well, they can expand our reach. Use them in all kinds of marketing materials (print, swag, online) to push people to engage with UWG on social media.

BE A CONVERSATIONALIST. Check out what other organizations (schools, departments, people) are doing on social media. Leave comments, like interesting or exciting posts, share and retweet things that are relevant to your school/department/work. Basically make friends (aka followers) on social media by putting UWG out there. And when your followers engage on your pages, always respond! This incentivizes potential followers by showing them that you pay attention.

FOLLOW UP. Follow everyone. (Well, maybe not everyone.) But do make it a point to follow/like institutional partners, Carrollton community businesses, peer schools or departments, high schools in high-interest recruitment areas, etc. Not only will you be able to see what they’re all up to, but also, hopefully, they’ll share the love and follow back.

TAP INTO YOUR INNER CIRCLE. Social is all about the numbers. People gauge our legitimacy and presence in the industry based on our social following. So do whatever it takes to play the numbers game, even if that means asking Mom.

WEAVE IT TOGETHER. Use your other marketing channels (emails, brochures, postcards) to push people to social media. Include engaging calls to action that compel people to like and follow. Email newsletters, for example, are a great place to feature content that pushes people to your social accounts because they can like/follow in real time.

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Tactics for posting more consistently and strategically.

CUT IT DOWN. People don’t read. Especially on social media. Keep posts brief, even on platforms with no character limit. A good rule of thumb: no more than three concise sentences. Don’t try to tell the whole story on social media; use links to push users to more information on your website.

KEEP CALM. CARRY ON. Every once in a while, you’ll find an unhappy post or comment from a follower. Address the concerns of the follower as best you can. Don’t engage further if the follower is unrelenting or unreasonable.

MORE ISN’T ALWAYS MERRIER. Don’t feel pressured to be on every social platform. Choose the platforms that best suit your audiences and the types of content that work for telling your story. Having social accounts that have petered out is worse than not having them at all.

MAKE IT A MACHINE. Establish a workflow for social media content, with clear responsibilities and roles for contributors:

• Managers meet daily to touch base.• Managers meet weekly to write and schedule

posts and review analytics.• Social team meets quarterly to discuss

progress, ideas, and goals.• UWG faculty and staff sends content to social

media managers daily for consideration.

KEEP TRACK. Most social media sites have analytics tools that show which posts are performing well and which aren’t. Take advantage of these tools to see what people like on your social media channels. If something isn’t working, change it.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING. Don’t post in a vacuum. Coordinate your social posts around other marketing efforts, campus happenings, pop culture, local events, etc. Making timely posts is half the battle of being engaging.

WHO’S THE BOSS? Designate a manager (or two) who can take ownership of the social media process and create guidelines and goals for the whole social media team. This person should serve as the point of contact for all things social on your team.

SHOW YOUR PERSONALITY. On social media, we can break from more formal writing conventions. People come to social sites to be social. They don’t want to be talked at but talked to. Stay within the tone and style of the Go West brand: adventurous, optimistic, and energized.

THINK AHEAD. Sometimes you’re posting on the fly – that’s the nature of social media. But, for content that you know is coming (announcements, articles, quotes), schedule ahead to ease your day-to-day burden.

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LET THEM LEAD. Give students the opportunity to show and tell with account takeovers. Arrange for students on study abroad, research excursions, or at internships to take over an account for a day. Students like to hear from other students in their own words. And this gives more authenticity to the Go West story.

FIND THE BALANCE. We should be using all of our social accounts to tell the University’s story and give a sense of life on our campus. Make sure there’s a variety of content on each platform that gives the full picture.

ASK THE BIG QUESTIONS. When you’re formulating your social strategy ask how you can leverage social media for recruitment, fundraising, and other important revenue generating or institution sustaining streams. Connect with those departments to make sure your strategies are aligned with their needs.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR. There should be an editorial calendar for your overall marketing efforts. Make sure that social media is part of that calendar and that your social media efforts are planned in conjunction with the other editorial content for marketing.

POINT TO THE PROOF. Call on our prominent/most successful alumni to share their stories. Post content of them sharing their favorite UWG experiences and telling their success stories. Get them to share/retweet on their own pages. If possible, have alums host “ask me anything” sessions from our accounts.

BE ON BRAND. Follow the standards and guidelines for the University of West Georgia brand. It’s okay to have some fun on social but everything should still feel like it’s part of the overarching Go West story.

CIRCLE UP. Meet regularly with the other campus social media managers to swap ideas and connect on strategy.

USE IT OR LOSE IT. Use our social media channels as a tool to reach institutional, division, or departmental goals. If your entire social strategy is geared toward getting likes and followers, you’re missing the point. Connect your social strategy to your overall marketing goals. Ask yourself questions like, “How can we use social media to address this problem? Reach that audience? Tell this story?” Never lose sight of the bigger picture.

SHOW YOUR STUFF. Our students have incredible research opportunities and personal attention from professors. Talk about it. Share videos, photography, and stories that bring the groundbreaking and collaborative thinking we do to life. Bringing the academic opportunities to life helps us connect with prospects, donors, alums, and our internal community. That’s a win-win-win-win.

SHARE THE LOVE. Call on students and faculty to talk up how UWG creates opportunities and help them reach their goals. Use first-person quotes on our social accounts and encourage students and faculty to tell their stories on their personal accounts using our hashtags.

Tactics for leveraging social to achieve institutional goals.

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Campus HashtagsThese are the main hashtags used to broadcast UWG messaging. Promote them heavily on and off social media.

#GoWest This is University of West Georgia’s brand hashtag. It’s a call to action for prospects to explore life at UWG and a rallying howl for all of our internal Wolves (student, faculty, staff, etc.). Use it on printed materials of all kinds to spur engagement and on the bulk of your social posts. When people search this hashtag, we want them to be met with a wealth of our branded content that brings the UWG experience to life.

#ForeverWest Use this hashtag to celebrate our graduating students and the success of our alums. Encourage alums and graduating students to use this hashtag to tell their stories and celebrate their accomplishments.

#GoWestGoGrad Tell the stories of UWG’s graduate students, faculty, and programs with this hashtag.

#GoWestGoWolves Use this hashtag celebrate UWG athletics and foster pride for campus events.

#UWG Use this hashtag in place of the University’s full name on social media and to claim University of West Georgia as UWG.

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Example postsPost text you can pair with various designed assets and images, use as text-only posts, or reference for guidance on brand voice on social media.

Here’s to Carrollton, home to great music, coffee shops, eateries, and the farthest west university in Georgia, #UWG. #GoWest

Ready to take the next step in your career? Go West for grad school and take the first step toward blazing a new trail. #GoWestGoGrad

When you #GoWest, you can go anywhere. #UWG graduates go on to do amazing things at some pretty impressive places. Where will you go?

Go discover. Go lead. Go innovate. Go create. Go question. Go as far as your mind will take you and then, go further. #GoWest

You weren’t made to sit still. Stay put. Or follow blindly. At #UWG, discover a whole world of opportunity that’s yours for the taking. #GoWest At #UWG, students are free. To go explore, go strong, go like their feet are on fire. We have 150+ student orgs and 85+ programs of study. We say go, go, go.

Take classes in Newnan or Carrollton. Why wait? Dual enroll today. #GoWest

When it comes to choosing a university, you could go anywhere. For a life-changing, mind-expanding, perspective-shifting experience, #GoWest.

Broaden your horizons. Blaze a new trail. Chart your path for the future. What are you waiting for? #GoWest. #UWG

A university has the power to take you places. Where will you go? #GoWest #UWG

In the #UWG Southwire Sustainable Business Honors Program and you’ll earn your bachelor’s, master’s, and land a job in just 5 years. What are you waiting for? #GoWest for business.

Cultural immersion in China. Providing healthcare in Ecuador. Learning Arabic in United Arab Emirates. There’s no limit to where you can go once you #GoWest.

(18 UWG students take research to the big leagues)18 students shared their work at the highly competitive National Conference on Undergraduate Research. Every submitted abstract from UWG was accepted. Great minds #GoWest.

It’s never too early to #GoWest. Start your college journey before you even finish high school.

Go discover. Go explore. Go blaze a new trail. We’ll show you how. #GoWest

This is where ideas become career paths. Where questions become adventures. Where challenges become triumphs. Where the sunset meets the horizon. And where you’ll share an experience with more than 13,000 people who’ll become your wolf pack. #GoWest

Xavier Jennings turned an interest in policy into internship opportunities on the campaign trail and at Georgia’s Capitol. Next up, he’s getting his master’s in policy studies. Where will West take you? Let’s find out. #GoWest

(English goes Eco- garden photo) English professor Ashley Dycus is building her class around sustainability to better cater to science, math, and engineering students. She worked to find texts that align with their interests and took them into the gardens to relate to their readings.

#UWG grad student and park ranger, Akiebia Hicks has been accepted to the Conference on Sustaining Diverse and Inclusive Communities for her research on why minorities, especially African-Americans, have much lower attendance to the national parks. #GoWestGoGrad

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Great minds Go West.

English goes eco.

Where will West take you?

Go make your mark. Go West.

Explore. Experiment. Hypothesize. Create. Design. Innovate. Analyze. Build. Dream. Do amazing things.

FBI, NASA, The Smithsonian, and beyond. Where will West take you?

Design assetsPair these graphic images with written text to share on social media. They can be mixed and matched with the post text provided in this toolkit (as appropriate), or you can use them with new posts that you’ve written. Don’t share them all at once. Spread them out over time to give them greater impact. Reuse the ones that have worked well and update them periodically to reflect new student stories, facts, and information. Remember, these types of branded posts should be just one piece of your overall social media content stream. They should be mixed in with your everyday in-real-time content to have the best result.

Post images

Great Minds Go West.

5 years.

Get your BA, MBA, and a job in

Go West. It changes everything.

18 UWG students take research to the big leagues.

Go West and reach new heights.

Great Minds Go West.

Go West online and there’s no limit to how far you can go.

Great Minds Go West.

Go West online and there’s no limit to how far you can go.

Great Minds Go West.

Great Minds Go West.

Go as far as your mind will wander.

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”– Henry David Thoreau

Go discover.Where will West take you?

How will you #GoWest?

Go lead. Go create.

Go innovate. Go. Go West. Explore horizon- expanding ideas.

Click thumbnails to download images.

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Go like nothing can stop you. Go create. Go West. Go West.

Visit. Explore. Apply. Go Wolves. #GoWestGoWolves

For a life-changing experience, Go West.

A University with the power to take you places.

Go West.

Blaze your trail for the future.

Go West.

Go make your mark.

Go explore uncharted territory.

Broaden your horizons. Break new ground.

Go West. It changes everything.

Take your career in a new direction.

Blaze a new trail.

From the state capitol to campaign trail.

Went West. Found mypassion.

Thinking about graduate school? Think West.

Countless ways to Go West for Grad School.

Carrollton.Newnan.Anywhere.

#GoWest GoGrad

Click thumbnails to download images.

Post images

Design assets

Go beyondexpectations.

Global explorers #GoWest.

Think in anew direction.

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#GoWestGoGrad

Smart business needs great minds.

Click thumbnails to download images.

Post images

Design assets

In-person,online, andhybrid classes. full- and part- time options.

Thinking about a business degree? Think West.

Thinking about a business degree? Think West.

Thinking about graduate school? Think West.

22 master’s & 4 doctoral programs. Go West. It changes everything.

22 master’s degree programs

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Admissions Admissions

Richards College of Business

Click thumbnails to download images.

Facebook profile images

Design assets

College ofScience & Mathematics

College of Social Sciences

College of Education

College of Arts and Humanities

Tanner Health System School of Nursing

Honors College

Graduate School

Graduate School

Ingram Library

UWG Newnan

Admissions Admissions

Richards College of Business

Twitter and Instagram profile images

College ofScience &

Mathematics

College of Social Sciences

College of Education

College of Arts and

Humanities

Tanner Health System

School of Nursing

Honors College

Graduate School

Ingram Library

UWG Newnan

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Facebook banner images

How will you #GoWest?

How will you #GoWest?

Design assets

Click thumbnails to download images.

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Twitter banner images

How will you #GoWest?

How will you #GoWest?

Design assets

Click thumbnails to download images.

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Thinking about a business degree? Think West.

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.”– Henry David ThoreauGreat

Minds Go West.

Go West and reach new heights.

Great Minds Go West.Go West. It changes everything.

18 UWG students take research to the big leagues.

Post templates

Design templatesUse these InDesign templates to update the design assets as needed. There are templates for each post image style, profile images, and banner images.

Facebook banner templates

Facebook profile templates

Click thumbnails to download files.

Go discover.

Admissions

Richards College of Business

Admissions

Richards College of Business

How will you #GoWest?

How will you #GoWest?

Twitter banner templates

Twitter and Instagram profile templates

Go beyondexpectations.

For a life-changing experience, Go West.

Went West. Found mypassion.

Thinking about graduate school? Think West.

Go West online and there’s no limit to how far you can go.

Great Minds Go West.