{"id":70,"date":"2016-03-18T15:28:22","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T15:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/?page_id=70"},"modified":"2019-06-20T17:11:07","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T17:11:07","slug":"promotional-posts","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/social-media-guidelines\/promotional-posts\/","title":{"rendered":"Promotional posts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Promotional posts<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Social media can be an effective way to raise your profile. In achieving that, you occasionally need to broadcast. Announcements, new developments, research outputs, events \u2013 it\u2019s often one-way communication, and you want people to either read the message, click the link, or register for the event.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s best to limit the amount of promotional broadcasting you do, and balance it out with conversational posts, replies and shares of other users\u2019 posts.<\/p>\n<p>When you do need to promote something, it helps to put the audience into the story, so that it has context for them. Ask them a question about the content, or tell them how it affects or benefits them. This approach works particularly well when posting a link to a new blog or sharing some research findings. How does it affect the audience?<\/p>\n<p>How do you do it?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Start by asking yourself \u2018what\u2019s in it for them?\u2019 and put yourself in your audience\u2019s shoes.<\/li>\n<li>Put the content into context wherever possible. Show, don\u2019t tell.<\/li>\n<li>Focus on the person or people at the heart of the story. Include photos of them doing the thing you\u2019re talking about.<\/li>\n<li>Use videos, photos and info cards to illustrate the things you\u2019re talking about.<\/li>\n<li>Think about when the best time to post is. Maybe you can post something two or three times over the course of a week \u2013 people are online at different times.<\/li>\n<li>Develop a content plan for all of your promotional posts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Three tips: <\/strong>start with the audience, plan your content, show don&#8217;t tell.<\/p>\n<p><em>Further reading: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.bufferapp.com\/ways-to-write-social-media-updates\"><em>71 Ways to Write a Social Media Update: Specific Tips to Engage Your Followers<\/em><\/a><em> [Buffer], <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.bufferapp.com\/twitter-data-1-million-tweets\"><em>What 1 Million Tweets Taught Us About How People Tweet Successfully<\/em><\/a><em> [Buffer]<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/social-media-guidelines\/\">Back to the guidelines main page<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Promotional posts Social media can be an effective way to raise your profile. In achieving that, you occasionally need to broadcast. Announcements, new developments, research outputs, events \u2013 it\u2019s often one-way communication, and you want people to either read the message, click the link, or register for the event. It\u2019s best to limit the amount of promotional broadcasting you do,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":316,"featured_media":0,"parent":42,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-70","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P7mXc8-18","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":42,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/social-media-guidelines\/","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":0},"title":"Social media guidelines","author":"Joseph Field","date":"March 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"These guidelines are for use by Sheffield Hallam\u00a0University\u00a0staff. If you want to reproduce them, please ask permission. These guidelines outline best practice in the use of\u00a0social media to engage audiences, and promote the work of the University on social channels. They are intended to be enabling, and they set out\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":218,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/social-media-guidelines\/audience\/","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":1},"title":"Audience","author":"Joseph Field","date":"July 28, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Audience Your social media account will aim to engage a relevant audience, and you will need to do some thinking about them in order to decide what you post. Most of the time, you will need to think about content that isn't just 'promotional' (although there is a time, place\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":191,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/social-media-guidelines\/thought-leadership\/","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":2},"title":"Thought leadership","author":"Joseph Field","date":"July 15, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Social media can be really effective in raising your profile, demonstrating your expertise and building a network of people and organisations who share your interests. From commenting on current events to lifting the lid on research, many scientists, political experts and business leaders use social tools for thought leadership. Blogging\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":68,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/social-media-guidelines\/community-management\/","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":3},"title":"Community management","author":"Joseph Field","date":"March 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Community management Social media is about communities: people who are there to communicate\u00a0with other people who share their interests. For a brand, those people are often customers or service-users. Community management is the practise of creating and managing online spaces that enable\u00a0dialogue with, and between, members of that community. In\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":90,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/social-media-guidelines\/evaluation-and-reporting\/","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":4},"title":"Evaluation and reporting","author":"Joseph Field","date":"March 18, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Evaluation and reporting Once\u00a0you've identified your audience and thought about how best to engage them, you can use analytics to tell you if it's working (or not). If you know your goals for social media, this bit is very useful. Engagement Engagement is an umbrella term for the likes, shares,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":203,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/social-media-guidelines\/getting-started\/","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":5},"title":"Getting started","author":"Joseph Field","date":"July 27, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"'Social media' describes an ever-increasing number of digital platforms, which are used in different ways by different people. Each platform has its own strengths and uses. It can be time-consuming to learn the ins and outs of a social media platform, and even more time-consuming to grow an engaged network\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/70\/revisions\/118"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/42"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.ac.uk\/socialmedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}