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Content Amplification
Looking to have your social media content promoted or amplified across institutional social media channels?
There are a couple of things we consider:
- Does it fit within our institutional content strategy (ICS)?
- Is it relevant to the broader online SFU community?
- Does the content align with channel best practices (i.e., copy, visuals, etc.)
What is C&M trying to do with content?
Engage our strategic audiences in stories about SFU that are tied to SFU’s strategic priorities:
- Ensure the stories we tell are consistent and advance SFU’s strategic vision
- Deliver SFU content in the hands of the right people at the right time for the right reason
- Convert the people who read our stories into brand ambassadors
- Reduce the time spent on quantity and increase the quality of our content
Audience
Although each external channel has their own unique primary audience and strategy, generally our messages reach a wide audience of students, alumni, staff, faculty, industry professionals, government officials, donors, community partners, prospective students and their parents.
What we suggest when creating content:
- People first, factoids second - Focus on storytelling through the people, using personal stories and celebrating their successes when possible to illustrate a topic, idea, initiative etc.
- Friendly, casual tone - Steer clear of the formal writing and focus on an informal, conversational tone.
- Visual - Most of our stories are distributed through a variety of social networks so it’s important to think about how you are going to tell the story, through photographs or video as well as text.
- Editorial style - The editorial style guide describes SFU's editorial "house style" for spelling, use of capitalization, periods, semicolons and more.
Stories we post
We tell stories aligned with the university’s:
- Pillars: Engaging students, engaging research (which includes innovation and entrepreneurship), engaging community (which includes all programming)
- Priorities: student experience, aboriginal reconciliation commitments, campus expansions and improvements, big data
Types of stories we post:
- Hands-on experiential learning opportunities that connect the knowledge in the classroom to benefit of society
- Rankings/awards: when our researchers have been recognized nationally or internationally recognized, beyond a specific field of study or touches on a relevant social issue
- When we've transformed ideas made in the classroom, lab and community into ventures that scale or innovations that benefit society
- How we cultivate dialogue on important societal issues
Do you have a story that could work for institutional channels? Share it with us at digital@sfu.ca.
Stories we amplify
We amplify content (sharing or engaging with already posted social media content) when the purpose of the content is tied to the strategic priorities of the activities of another department.
Types of stories we amplify:
- Student Life: Announcement of locally recognized awards
- Student, staff and faculty milestones
- General faculty profiles (cross-promotion)
- Announcements of new instructors
- Research programs and announcements applicable to a broad group of SFU researchers
- Journal published in niche topic areas vs broad application or impact
- Important events and activities relevant to a department or faculty
Do you already have a social media post that could benefit from amplification (sharing / engagement from @SFU)? Send us the links at digital@sfu.ca, in the Teams’ channel, “Content Amplification,” or mention it at our weekly Tuesday morning News meeting.
Still have questions? Reach out at digital@sfu.ca.