Social Media
From special events to daily routines, the purpose of El Camino's social media accounts is to be instrumental in showcasing an authentic Warrior experience.
Purpose
El Camino College social media is a reflection of and invitation to campus life. ECC’s fellowship is not only comprised of current students, faculty and staff, but they are College alumni, prospective students, members of the community and the higher education world at large.
Our objective is to curate a feed valued on authenticity and accuracy.
Institutional Policy
As a manager, editor and/or content creator for El Camino social media accounts, you must abide by the same media standards and policies of the El Camino Community College District. You are a representative of ECC and your ECC social media account is a marketing and brand extension of the school.
All published content must align with ECC’s mission and values.
Requesting a Social Media Account
Before you create your social media account, please identify the following:
- Dedicated account manager, editor and content creator
- Desired platform(s) to establish an ECC account [Instagram, TikTok, etc.]
- Frequency/consistency/cadence of publishing (Daily, hourly, etc.)
- Target audience
- Analytics goals (Followers, engagement, etc.)
With this information, you will be able to maintain a steady workflow for publishing content on social media, as well as measuring benchmarks that will help your new account grow.
Next, we suggest choosing a simple, clean account handle (@elcaminoedu) with a limited character count, but legible with abbreviations.
Marketing & Communications will need the contact information from your account’s personnel, as well as the account’s login info, so that we may add it to the list of ECC social media accounts group.
We strongly advise to plan a transfer of ownership to transition between personnel when there is a vacated spot on your team. This will help continue the regular stream of content and prevent the account from becoming dormant.
Social Media Guidelines
Behind every piece of social content is a purpose. Whether it’s a promotional flyer, a hashtag trend or photo/video, there needs to be a method to why and how you publish onto social media.
The platform of choice is also key to a post’s success. Keep in mind that a viral tweet might not have the same impact if it’s shared directly onto Instagram. Instead, we can translate the concept into the voice of another platform. This can promote higher probability of engagement with followers.
Visual composition is crucial to each platform. Be mindful of the content you create and match it to the platform of choice. If you are distributing content across multiple platforms, please format to each.
- Feed [Square (1080x1080px), Wide (1920x1080px), Portrait (1080x1350px)]
- Story [Vertical (1080x1920px)]
- Reels [Vertical (1080x1920px)]
TikTok/Snapchat
- Vertical (1080x1920px)
- Square (1080x1080px)
- Wide (1920x1080px)
- Story (1080x1920px)
- Wide (1920x1080px)
- Square (1080x1080px)
When filming video and taking photos, please make sure your subject is well lit.
Utilize shaded areas outdoors during daylight and while indoors refrain from positioning your subjects in front of open windows or dark corners of a room.
A frequently overlooked aspect of social media is audio quality.
Nearby Subject
- Phone/camera mic is OK
- Any wired or wireless headphone with mic is preferable
- Stay clear of noisy surroundings (Crowds, street traffic, construction)
Far Subject
- External audio source is recommended
- Headphones with a mic can be used to record audio to Voice Memos or similar apps
- DO NOT use phone/camera mic
An integral part of social media is communication between your account and its followers. Be sure to engage within a timely manner.
Comments
Comments with questions or concerns should be responded to preferably well within 24-hours.
If a question is personal or might reveal private information, you can notify the user via comment that the conversation will be transferred to Direct Message.
Direct Message
All direct messages should be responded to within 24-hours.
Hashtags
Respond to hashtags if there is an opportunity to engage in conversation, such as congratulating a new student on their acceptance and/or official enrollment.
Negative Engagement
In the event a user responds to a post using negative or inflammatory language, we recommend publicly replying to the individual and transferring communication with them to a Direct Message. Allow the individual to clearly state their grievance and direct them to the proper channels to resolve the issue.
If the interaction continues, we suggest refraining from further engagement with the commentor.
As an educational institution, we must remain transparent in all communications.
El Camino College accounts should never delete comments, block user accounts or other forms of censorship online. We also recommend refraining from deleting your accounts posts, unless necessary due to platform inaccuracies.
Best Practices
Aligning with the previous recommendations from Guidelines and Monitoring, these additional Best Practices will help in the overall success of your El Camino social account.
Establish a practical, strategic and effective editorial calendar for your content. By understanding your office or event schedule, you should be able to create a pattern
For visual-centric platform feeds, like Instagram and TikTok, it’s beneficial to curate your imagery with a shared consistent aesthetic and color palette. El Camino’s royal blue is a great target to aim for.
Pay close attention to your stream of posts and mix in photo and video between text-heavy graphics.
Groups should refrain from using the main El Camino logo as your platform’s profile picture/avatar.
When submitting your social media account request, Marketing & Communications will create a unique and branded image for use on your profile.
For your account’s security, we advise that you change your password at least once a year. Please notify Marketing & Communications when you change your password, so that we can update our list of official El Camino social media accounts.
A strong password is a phrase with additional alphanumeric characters (WarriorBlue#22*).
If you host a takeover, you will need to change your password both before and after the event.
Be mindful of how your channel grows and create initiatives on how you measure success. Follower count is one aspect of social media growth. Likes, Comments, Shares, Click-Thru Rate, Views and Retention are a few other indicators of engagement.
Identify the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) that you would like to measure.