CU ANSCHUTZ
Social Media
Social media can make an incredible impact and should be just as strategic as your other methods of communication. We’ve outlined general tips, general guidelines, FAQs and more for the main components found in social media. Our goal is to maintain a cohesive university brand message across all social channels.
Prior to getting your organization's account started on social, please review the information and links on this webpage, and submit a social media registration form.
If you’re unsure if social media is right for your school, department or unit, contact your school's communications team for guidance.
Establishing a Social Strategy
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Choose Clear Goals & Objectives
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Determine Target Audience
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Perform Competitor Research
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Plan Your Content
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Review Analytics
Choose clear goals and objectives and determine how you’ll measure success.
What do you want? Are you seeking brand awareness; student/faculty recruitment; campuswide engagement; community building, etc?
For example: If one of your goals is to foster a campus community, you will track your engagement and engagement rate percentage (how many engagements vs. number of impressions). If one of your goals is brand awareness, you will track reach, impressions or followers.
Based on your determined goal(s), choose your intended audience. Then, learn what you can about your audience, including age, location, career, etc.
This will provide you with a better understanding of what platforms you join and what type of content you will create.
If you already have existing accounts, consider what value they add. It is always better to do one social media account very well than be spread thin over several.
Visit and scroll through social media profiles of competitors, determining what type of content they share; how their audience engages and what makes you unique compared to them. You don’t need to invent the wheel.
Plan your content in advance, determining what you will post on what dates and what cadence you seek.
Content Planning Tips:
- Look at your competitors for inspiration
- Visit CU Anschutz newsroom
- Use CU-branded social media templates
- Reshare and engage with other CU Anschutz accounts
- Look at geotagging, your mentions/tags to reshare user-generated content. (Always ask the user for permission.)
- Visit the CU Anschutz events calendar
- Highlight your faculty and students
- Scroll on platforms to see emerging trends and replicate for your organization
Listen to your audience and review your analytics on a monthly basis. By listening to your audience, you'll quickly discover what content they want to see.
Without reviewing your most-engaged or highest-reached posts, as well as low-performing posts, you won’t be able to make informed decisions on what to share in the future.
Metrics To Watch:
- Engagement: Total of likes, comments and shares
- Reach: The number of people you reached
- Impressions: The number of times your post was seen (You can have multiple impressions for one person reached)
- Engagement Rate Percentage: The number of times your post was seen vs. your number of followers (A high ERP means your content resonated with your audience)
- Followers: The number of people following you (Take note if your followers are growing or shrinking. This provides insights into if your content is relevant.)
Setting Up Your Account
Platform-Specific Guidance
These times are general guidelines based on various sources, and effectiveness can vary based on the specific audience and content type. It's always recommended to monitor your own engagement metrics and experiment with different posting times to determine what works best for your audience.
LinkedIn has become the fastest growing platform for CU Anschutz. Thanks to regularly posting content, highlighting events with high-quality images, engaging with others and writing engaging social posts, the CU Anschutz LI following and engagements have grown by more than 100%.
Audience
CU Anschutz's audience on LinkedIn: current/prospective faculty; community leaders/influencers; general public.
Tone
Warm, celebratory, authentic, helpful
Frequency & Best Times to Post
- Aim to post 3 times per week. (No more than 1x per day)
- Best times to post on LinkedIn: Morning to Early Afternoon
- Best days to post on LinkedIn: Weekdays
Depending on your goals, Instagram is an excellent platform to showcase your organization and the people within it. Unlike other platforms, Instagram relies heavily on high-quality images and videos to highlight your organization.
Audience
CU Anschutz's audience on Instagram: current/prospective students, current faculty/staff and the larger metro Denver community.
Tone
Playful, inclusive, feel-good
Frequency & Best Times to Post
- Aim to post 3-5x per week. (This can be a combination of stories, reels and posts. For example, three stories per week, one reel and one post.)
- Best times to post on Instagram: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Best days to post on Instagram: Weekdays
Facebook, now the veteran social platform of the pack, has changed quite a bit. With an ever-changing algorithm, it can be challenging to break through the other noise to not only grow your following but be seen on the platform. However, if you have an ad budget, you can garner the largest ROI for reach, impressions and engagement.
Audience
CU Anschutz’s audience on Facebook: Colorado general public; alumni; community members with ties to campus. This is the platform we use to generate brand awareness.
Tone
Warm, informative/educational, proud but humble
Frequency & Best Times to Post
- Best times to post on Facebook: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Best days to post on Facebook: Weekdays
X
X remains one of the most easy-to-use platforms to build relationships with faculty/staff, peer institutions and CU Anschutz accounts. It also is the most effective for scientists/researchers to foster collaborations, share their research and make connections with colleagues.
The character limit for X is 280. While visuals aren’t included in the character count, links, mentions and hashtags do, so keep that in mind. Hashtags and tagging/mentioning others dominate X. It’s how trending conversations are started and serves as a gateway for you to use them on your platform.
Audience
CU Anschutz’s audience on X: Colorado general public; faculty/staff; peer institutions; alumni; community members with ties to campus. A great way to connect with CU Anschutz accounts and followers is to allows add the hashtag #CUAnschutz when you post.
Tone
Informative/educational, collaborative, warm, supportive
Frequency & Best Times to Post
- Best times to post on X: 8 a.m. - 11 a.m.
- Best days to post on X: Weekdays