Social Media

For those departments that would like to begin the conversation about Social Media we have put together this document to help guide your decision.

Who should have a branded/official social media account?

If you are interested in bringing your department or initiative into the social space, it is recommend that you be a user personally on the platform you would like to use for your department or initiative. It's a good idea to become acquainted with the platform for yourself first so that you are familiar with the time and effort it takes to successfully run a platform, with how people and organizations communicate in the space, and so that you can effectively use it for your department and the HBS brand.

How do I determine if my department or initiative is ready for a social media presence?

Here is a list of preliminary questions to go over internally when you are considering a social media presence.

Organizational Questions

1. What do you think a social media presence can do for your department or initiative?

2. What are your goals for bringing your department or initiative to the social space?

3. In terms of providing content on social, what are you afraid of? What confuses you?

4. Are you already familiar with the social platform you are interesting in launching?

5. Who approves the content before it's published?

6. How many people will be contributing content?

7. How do you engage and communicate with the various departments?

8. Does a distinctive goal for the content exist?

9. Who will be responsible for providing content and how often?

10. Do you have the time to commit to managing a social media account?

Audience Questions

1. How do you currently communicate with your audiences?

2. How often do you communicate with them?

3. Who provides the content for those communications?

4. What kind of content is provided for the audiences?

5. What do you ask your audiences to do? Do they do it?

6. How does your audience prefer to communicate with you?

7. Have your audiences ever requested specific content?

8. What types of content do you think your audience needs/wants?

9. How comfortable with social media is your audience?

Content Questions

1. What existing content do you have that you can share?

2. What type of content from others can you share with your audience?

3. What topics may you take advantage of to engage discussion?

4. What topics are off-limits?

5. What is your capacity to produce content?

Additional consideration

A successful social media community requires time. At HBS we have moved away from simply broadcasting information. Dedicated time for listening and engaging with our fans and followers has become a key part of our social strategy. If your department or initiative would like some coverage in the social space, but are unable to allot the time to build a successful presence, please reach out to Ashley Finethy to discuss cross-channel promotional options!