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Setting up an account for your department

When setting up an account for a UT project or department, we would like to give you the following tips:

4 questions to ask

Looking for ways to start with social media for your own target audience? Ask yourself the following questions before you begin: 

  • 1. Why do you want to use social media?

    Are you creating a social media profile "because everyone has one" or do you have specific objectives in mind? Never set up a social media account, just to have an account.

  • 2. Who is your target audience?

    With whom will you be interacting in social media? Current students or prospective students? Researchers or scientists? What are the demographics of your prospective followers and which social channels do they use? In what topics is your target audience mostly interested? Figure this out to find the right platform and type of content.

  • 3. Do you have the content to sustain a presence or would it be better to benefit from a collaborative promotion on central accounts?

    Social media is an engine which needs fuel: content. Make sure you have the resources to create and publish new content on a regular basis, but also to respond to messages you receive. In case you are unable to meet these requirements, you might want to reconsider creating your own social account and rather benefit from the reach of our central accounts.

    While it is not set in stone, the following guideline for posting frequency for the three most popular networks might help you in this: 

    • Facebook: 1-3 times per day
    • Twitter: 8-24 times a day
    • Instagram: once a day 
  • 4. When is the use of social media succesful?

    What is your social media's most important metric? Do you want to increase your online reach or drive more traffic to your webpage? Think about some KPI's to be able to decide if social media are worth the effort.

User Name

Ensure that utwente is included in the user name (therefore following the @), because utwente is a frequently used search term on Twitter. People do not search for UT, because there are many organisations around the world that are named UT and if you search for this term you will not find anything about the UT. For example UTwenteUB, UTwenteSport or VrijhofUTwente. Your own name may not be possible if it is too long. If you have utwente in your user name, utwente will also be included in the URL of every tweet and that means it is easier to find also if people search on Google. It is preferable not to use signs such as – or _ in your user name. Special signs are difficult to type on a mobile phone, which will keep people from mentioning you in tweets. If sticking two words together is not readable, you should rather use capital letters, such as @UTwenteSport instead of @utsport, @ut_sport @utwentesport or @utwente_sport.

Bio

Explain in your bio (your description) who you are and that you are a part of the UTwente. Example for @UTwenteSport: ‘News from the @UTwente Sports Centre. Managed By Jan and Kees.’ Try to mention utwente or the University of Twente here as well so that you can be found more easily. Your city and your website are shown below your bio. Make sure that you fill these in as well. This makes you yet again easier to find.

Interaction

Social Media is not about sending information and one way communication. Social Media is about interaction with people (and organizations). Just sending content will not create an successful account. Interaction like retweeting other people's content, one-to-one conversations and quickly replying to questions is very important for a successful account and a growing number of followers and engagement with your followers. 

Managing and monitoring several accounts and search terms

There are tools available to manage multiple Twitter account. Use a tool like Tweetdeck (online in your browser, official tool by Twitter) of Hootsuite (online or as a programme) or get a Coosto University licence (available for students and staff in the Netherlands on Surfspot.nl). 

Get a UT avatar for your account

UT accounts like study programmes or other service departments of the UT can get the official UT avatar. Please contact us (socialmedia@utwente.nl) if you want to request one! Color and element on the background differ per account.

Please do not create an own visual identity for your account. The UT has one visual identity for the whole organisation to make it easy to reconise UT content accross the web. 

Last edit: 20 October 2022

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