April showers bring May flowers and we hope the drops of wisdom we’ve shared with you this Social Media Month will help your institution grow its dandelion and evergreen content over the course of the coming months. We want to conclude this month with a follow-up blog answering questions from our popular webinarSocial Media for Higher Education.

What tactics are the most effective for social media?

Based on our experience, we think visual content — like images and video — performs much better than simple text posts or ads. The engagement tends to be much higher because as rich-media content captures your audience’s attention much more easily.

Choose your platforms strategically. You don’t need to be on every social media platform there is, but do your research to find out which platforms your target audience engages with most, and go from there.

Lastly, think outside of the box when developing your social media plan. You can’t repetitively post about the same topic every week. What events are coming up? What are students talking about the most? Take your marketing cap off and write about what students are interested in reading about.

Do you plan ahead and create a content calendar for all your social media channels? If so, what type of content themes are best for engagement?

It may be impossible to create a social media content platform for all of your channels, but we highly recommend creating a loose content calendar to fit your strategy. Plan your social media around themes that your target audience cares about and cover campus activities month-to-month. This will keep your whole team on board with the overall social media strategy.

What are the benefits of Google ?

Everything you post on Google can have its own ranking because each post has its on unique URL. Your posts have the ability to rank higher on search engines than your website would because of Google’s backing of Google .

Connect with your influencers and audiences by adding them to your circles. Merge your Google Page with your website — doing both of these things will help increase your impact on the search engines.

Not sure if you have the bandwidth to add another social media platform? Focus on what you do well and what’s working for your institution. Trying to be on every social media platform can create social media fatigue.

How do I get followers on Google , Instagram, Pinterest and other channels?

A great way to gain followers on new social media channels is to promote your new accounts on your more popular, existing accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter. Many of your fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter are getting on these newer channels too, so try to connect with them that way.

We’ve also seen schools promote their new social media accounts by giving out prizes to their new followers. One school even sent out emails to their alumni to promote a specific alumni group on LinkedIn. Think about where your audience is, what motivates them and plan a strategy around that.

How can I use social media to compliment my SEM?

There are many ways to use social media to compliment search engine marketing (SEM). We’ve seen great success when it comes to search ads paired with sponsored ads on Facebook and promoted posts on Twitter. With these channels, you can specifically target your ads to your fans and followers, their friends and users similar to them.

Facebook offers a new feature where you can create a custom audience by uploading your prospective student list. You can then target ads specifically to them to double down on that audience. You can also use Facebook Exchange and AdWords Remarketing to serve ads to those who have visited your website or specific pages on your website previously.

Watch our full webinar below and see how Converge Consulting can help you with your institution’s social media strategy!