Best Practices

Having a social media account on behalf of the college is an exciting opportunity for growth on and off campus but it requires more time and effort than you might expect. Before creating an account, these are our recommendations.  

• Define the purpose of having a social media presence. 

• Identify the goals to be achieved through social media. 

• Determine who will be responsible for managing the account. 

• Ensure that you can maintain consistent posting. 
   

Determining your reason for a social media presence is important because it can help you understand if setting up an account(s) is worth the planning, time and effort. For example, promoting an annual event to students can easily be accomplished through partnership with Marketing and Communications instead of creating a social media account. Identifying your department’s goals, such as prospective student outreach or alumni engagement, may inform which social media platform you decide to pursue since they have different demographics. Be sure to consider all the factors when deciding if social media is right for your department. 

You’ve made it past step one and have decided that you are ready to jump into the world of social media! Now it’s time to decide what platform(s) is the best choice for you.

• Who is the audience you want to reach? (current or prospective students? What age range?)  

• What resources (time, writing skills, photography, video, etc.) do you have?  

• How often can you post/share content?  

• What kind of messages do you want to share? (events, informational, links?)  
   

Bellevue College has a presence on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X (Twitter). By choosing one of the four previously listed channels, you can build off our established brand and interact with the main college’s pages to boost your own growth. If your department would like to start a social media account on a different platform, discuss that during your initial meeting with the Social Media Manager.

Instagram – One of the college’s most active audiences, this platform leans more towards current students, 59% of our Instagram followers are 18 – 34 years of age. This platform requires a photo or video for each post. While Instagram allows for up to five links on your profile, you are unable to hyperlink out to the web from the posts themselves unless you have a third-party app/website. Keep this in mind when selecting your preferred social media platform and crafting your messages.

Facebook – 60% of Bellevue College’s Facebook followers are between 24 – 44 years of age. This platform allows for text posts as well as photos and videos. It is a great platform for resharing industry information. If you decide to move forward with Facebook, we recommend creating a Facebook Page over a Facebook Group. Pages have more flexibility, are easier to brand, and allow more features, including showing up on Facebook homepage news feeds. Pages were specifically designed for organizations and should be used as such to represent Bellevue College.

LinkedIn – Bellevue College’s largest audience with almost 60k followers. The top three industries our audience works in include higher education, software development, and hospitals and health care. This audience is broad as it includes current and past employees, college leadership, alumni, working professionals, adult learners, and community members. This platform allows for text posts, photos, and videos, as well as articles and PDFs. This is a great platform for resharing industry information and sparking further conversations.  

X/Twitter – This platform is in transition, seeing a significant audience shift within the last few years. Our general audience includes organizations, members of the media, and elected officials. Although there is a 280-character limit on what can be shared, this platform allows text, photo, and video posts.  

By utilizing photos and videos of students and the Bellevue College campus instead of graphic art, we’re able to humanize our digital platforms. Humans are drawn to people’s faces and tend to interact more when photos and videos depict images of our wonderfully vibrant, diverse community.  

• We have the BC Photo Library available with usable images of students and campus.  

• When you see something, snap a picture, or take a video! Smartphone photos and the “inside look” at life on campus always perform well. Not every image or post needs to be high-quality professional images.  

• With three weeks of advanced notice, Marketing and Communications can assist with photography. Photography requests can made using the Marketing and Communications Intake Request Form.  

If students are identifiable, be sure to get a photo release image signed.  

Explore Info about Student Photo Releases   

Think about what you would want to see if you were an audience member of your page. Prospective and current students might like to see the following: 

• Campus life and events  

• Current student and alumni stories  

• Industry information  

• Relatable deadlines and important dates  

• Student support or opportunities  

• Student and faculty/staff success (awards, achievements, publications, scholarships, grants, etc.) 

Stories, Photos, Videos: There are a lot of diverse ways to communicate and engage with your followers on social media. Stories are temporary and last for 24 hours, while other profile grid or news feed posts are longer lasting and are saved on your social media profile. Stories are great for showing “in the moment” content, quick captures, or content that isn’t as formal or professionally crafted.  

Social Media Calendar: Keeping a calendar of quarterly or annual deadlines and events is an effective strategy for planning your posts. One strong benefit to being on the quarter system is how quickly you can re-use social media messaging. There will always be a first and last day of the quarter which makes for an easy and expected social media post. Know of an annual event, conference or project? Add coverage of it to your social media planning. We have yearly events on campus such as Welcome Week (first week of Fall Quarter), Bulldog Days (previously Homecoming), Discovery Day, and other department events. By building these known events into your social media calendar, you can save time and resources during your planning phase. Are there deadlines/ important dates that come up in your program or department every quarter/year? Social media is a great platform to communicate information and remind students of what is coming. 

Post Often: We ask that accounts are kept up to date and updated at least once every other quarter. However, if your goal is to build a community and grow your engagement, we recommend posting 1-3 times a week. This schedule tends to see the strongest growth as the platform algorithms prefer accounts that are active within the apps.  

Tagging/Collaborations: The main Bellevue College social media accounts can help uplift your posts and messaging if you tag and/or request a collaboration when posting. When done, the main accounts are more likely to see your post and share it and/or accept a collaboration request, which would share the post with its thousands of followers.  

Creating accessible social media posts and accounts ensures inclusion and that everyone in the Bellevue College community has access to information put forth by the college. Accessibility is more than just making content readable by screen readers, although that is an important aspect of creating accessible content. Accessibility considers plain language and how you communicate your message. Captions are for more than just those who are hard of hearing. They help people retain information and accommodate those with different noise levels in their environments.  

Here are a few actions you can take to create accessible social media posts: 

• Follow plain language standards 

• Write alt text on images 

• Turn auto-captions on for videos (and check for needed edits). If auto-captions are not available, write captions during the editing process of video production.  

• Because screen readers cannot read text on graphics, photographs with alt text and a strong accompanying caption will get your message across in the best way. 

• Emojis: Screen readers read descriptions of each emoji, so use within reason.