Ideas, insights and inspirations.

As a leading social media agency for manufacturers and industrial companies, we are frequently asked to share our best practices. This is part of a series of posts to explain how social media audit can serve their interests. A social media audit involves a comprehensive review of a industrial company’s primary social media channels, profiles, activities, and performance. The goal is to assess the effectiveness of the current strategy and identify areas for improvement. After gaining access to a manufacturer’s social media management software or accounts, we conduct a twelve-point social media audit to assess the following: 1. Profile Information AuditWe assess all official social media profiles to ensure accurate and consistent information is presented, including logos and colors, profile pictures, cover photos, about information, and contact details. 2. Platform Presence AuditWe identify all social media platforms where the manufacturer has a presence. This includes major platforms like YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Pinterest, etc. 3. Content AuditWe … Continue reading

Posted in: , ,

As a leading social media agency for colleges, universities and higher education institutions, we are frequently asked to share our best practices. This is part of a series of posts to explain how social media audit can serve their interests. A social media audit involves a comprehensive review of a higher education brand’s primary social media presence, activities, and performance. The goal is to assess the effectiveness of the current strategy and identify areas for improvement. This typically includes social media channels of the institution, schools, departments, alumni and centers of excellence. It excludes social media channels of athletics, labs, clubs and organizations, special events, and special initiatives. After gaining access to institution’s social media management software, we conduct a twelve-point social media audit to assess the following: 1. Profile Information AuditAssess all official social media profiles to ensure accurate and consistent information is presented, including logos and colors, profile pictures, cover photos, about information, and contact details. 2. Platform … Continue reading

Posted in: ,

College marketing and communications teams increasingly look to boost video teams and budgets. All well and good, but we should not overlook the enduring value and impact of your still image library. It’s easy to grow complacent and assume that last year’s photos will meet this year’s needs. It’s tempting to hire less qualified photographers, and to cram too many shots into a long day of shooting. Here are 5 Quick Tips on how to build, maintain and mature your campus photo library. Frequency: Many college photo libraries grow stale without anyone noticing. If you want to maintain a viable collection of photos, plan on four, two-day shoots each year. Story needs and brand understanding change — as do seasons, fashion, hair, and the campus environment. You will need to schedule multiple shoots each year for photos to keep pace. Quality: Staff photographers spend so much time shooting grip-and-grin, raise-a-glass campus events that few have time to hone their editorial POV … Continue reading

Posted in: , , , ,

  Today, there is a lot of advice around how to create high quality, student-centered content in the higher education space — from bringing student experiences to life through stories, photos and videos to creating content by involving passionate faculty, students and brand champions. However, far less is said regarding how to create an orchestrated effort around content publishing to ensure that your content receives the most visibility and positive engagement. Often, marketing teams get caught up in the demanding work of content creation and fall short when it comes to creating a well-thought-out content release plan. The result is limited exposure of a content piece that was incredibly time consuming to complete. At Elliance, for each piece of high-fidelity content — whether it’s an infographic, guide, video, blog post, story, etc. — we develop a content release plan to ensure maximum exposure among target audiences. While each piece of content demands unique considerations, here are a few recommendations that can … Continue reading

Posted in: , ,

I wrote a blog about Instagram and higher education a couple of years ago, and I think that it is a good time to revisit how universities can make the most of their Instagram presence. So, without further ado, here’s a quick Q&A with me, about Instagram in the higher education space. Q: Why should my institution care about Instagram? A: Because your prospects and current students care about Instagram. According to a social media survey by RBC Capital, 73% of 13- to 18-year-olds surveyed said that they had an Instagram account. SEVENTY-THREE PERCENT. If 73% of the prospects you’re trying to reach are standing in a room, shouldn’t you also be in that room? Teens care about Instagram and they’re actively engaging with the community every day. In a CNBC article about social media trends and teens, one 18-year-old is quoted saying “I feel that Instagram is still the most-used social media platform for people my age, and pretty … Continue reading

Posted in:

Snapchat had a rough year. With Instagram and Facebook stories moving in on Snapchat’s territory, Snapchat saw a drop in active user growth from 17.2% to just 5% this fall. Snapchat introduced stories in 2013. And they owned the market for daily image and video stories until August of 2016, when Instagram introduced their own story feature. There was a lot of initial backlash from users when Instagram stories launched last fall. It felt like Instagram had stolen something that was unique to Snapchat and users weren’t eager to switch platforms. But, as with most products and innovations the Facebook parent company has released over the years, users grew to love Instagram stories. This fall Instagram boasted a whooping 300 million daily users, trumping Snapchat’s 173 million. How will Snapchat rise above the tide in 2018? On Wednesday Snap, Inc. announced a major redesign to the app, an effort to differentiate themselves from other social media apps. One major change, … Continue reading

Posted in: ,

The title of this blog, “Find Meaning in Your Social Media Analytics” is kind of broad and could probably be interpreted in many ways. Upon coming across the blog title, one might think it was about discovering a secret way of distilling all that unruly social media web traffic into coherent and meaningful data reports. Others may think it is a blog about some new age digital strategy that will help you find your inner social media analytics chi that simplifies the way you look at clicks, likes and impressions. Although these ideas sound great and might be topics for future AHA blog posts, this one is simply about how to help you locate and find meaning in the social media analytics tools provided in your Facebook and Twitter accounts.  So let’s get started with this simple road map and light overview of the Facebook and Twitter analytics platforms that may help you make more sense of why you are … Continue reading

Posted in: , ,

Most of us use our personal social media channels like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for just that reason – simply being social. It’s an effortless way to catch up with old friends and for keeping tabs on family – you know, the “My goodness, look at how your kids have grown” moments. At one time or another many of us have also used social media channels for posting videos of our accomplishments, our kids, vacations and yes, the awesome water skiing squirrel. Even social media assets in the marketing and business realms serve social purposes with the goals of gaining business and notoriety within our manufacturing, higher education, financial banking or other fields of commerce. Most social media channels are online billboards for boosted digital ads in which a company’s message is displayed to targeted audiences. In many firms, social media is the supporting cast to marketing websites or blogs and if you have an energetic and focused social media … Continue reading

Posted in: , ,

In recent blogs we’ve discussed the many benefits of universities and colleges utilizing Snapchat as a higher education marketing tool — from Geofilters that essentially act as digital billboards to Snapchat stories, which give you raw, in-the-moment exposure to a day-in-the-life at that institution. But, as of August, there’s a new kid on the social media block — Instagram Stories — and though the idea may have originated from that of its counterpart, Snapchat, they have taken it and run in their own direction, providing unique opportunities for individuals and marketers and winning over users left and right. In just nine months of existence, Instagram Stories has reached over 200 million daily active users. The last recorded number of daily active users for Snapchat was released in December — reaching 161 million. This speaks volumes to the powerhouse that is Instagram. In months Instagram has measured up to and very-likely surpassed the number of story users Snapchat has garnered over … Continue reading

Posted in:

Facebook has been making a lot of changes to their news feed algorithm. In the past, there used to be a chronological listing of stories as they were shared by your network. However, as the membership on the social media network continued to grow (more than a billion members) and the content continued to explode, Facebook decided to make some changes. The goal, per Facebook, of News Feed is to “deliver the right content to the right people at the right time so they don’t miss the stories that are important to them.” To make this happen, Facebook currently considers thousands of factors to serve up stories from a publisher’s page in an individuals’ news feed. Some of these factors can be broken up into the following: Relevance factors Engagement factors Quality factors Profile factors Recency factors Relevance Factors: Is your audience interested in that topic? Has your audience engaged with that topic in the past? Have they hidden any content related … Continue reading

Posted in: