Social Media Training
The College of Arts Marketing team run monthly social media training sessions led by our Digital and Social Media Assistant Dr Lucia Jackson. These training sessions cover a broad range of topics designed to improve your skills and confidence when managing social media accounts assoicated with the University of Glasgow's College of Arts.
Previous topics covered have included:
- Improving your social media accessibility
- How to schedule and plan social content
- Keeping social media to brand
- How to write for social
If you have any specific social media training topic requests please contact lucia.jackson@glasgow.ac.uk
Join our Social Media Training Sessions
College of Arts social media training sessions are open to any colleauges with an interest in social media. The training sessions run on the first Tuesday of every month at 9.30am.
Book in to our Social Media Training
TRAINING RESOURCES
Social Media Glossary (General Terms)
Accessibility
On social media, accessibility is the practice of making content accessible to as many people as possible. This can include adding alt text or image descriptions to images, subtitles to video content, and providing podcast transcripts.
AirTable
Online database software used by UofG Arts team for social media. This has templates for numerous databases, including Content Calendars and Campaign Trackers.
Alt Text
AKA Alternative Text or Alt Tags. This is a short, written description of an image. It helps screen-reading tools describe the image to visually impaired readers. Alt Text tells people what is in an image, providing basic details and context. It should be specific and succinct.
Alt text copy should not include emojis.
Alt text can be added to images on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
NB – at time of writing, Alt Text cannot be added to Instagram posts via a CMS, it can only be added manually to post.
Camel Case
Camel case refers to the practice of capitalising the first letter of a word in a hashtag, or words in multi-word hashtags – e.g. #Research #Glasgow #SocialMedia #WeLoveCamelCase
This helps people to decode and understand your hashtags. It also makes it easier for screen reading technology to understand where a word ends, and another begins.
Caption
A caption is the text that accompanies an image on social media, e.g. on Instagram.
Captions can include text, hashtags, mentions, and emojis.
Content
Anything you share on social media – images, videos, news updates, event info, research, etc.
Content Calendar/Schedule
A calendar or schedule showing when and where you’re posting upcoming content. Good for planning and tracking campaigns, as well as helping to avoid clashes if more than one person is responsible for scheduling posts. This could be an Excel/Google Spreadsheet, an AirTable base, or similar.
Content Management System (CMS)
Software used to create, manage and schedule content for social media, as well as respond to comments and Direct Messages. Examples include Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Buffer. These are generally paid for, though most have trial options.
You can connect each of your social channels to a CMS. Rather than posting to individual channels or replying to messages through each channel’s inbox, you can instead manage everything through the CMS.
Copy
Copy refers to the written part of your content – I.e., your tweets, the captions to your Instagram posts.
DM
AKA ‘Direct Message’; a private message between you and another user, that appears only in your private inboxes. I.e. it does not appear on their profile or yours as a comment that anyone can read.
Emojipedia
Site that logs every single emoji and its meaning/the description that screen readers will use to describe it. Useful to visit before selecting any emojis you plan to use in social copy (some emoji descriptions are very long and/or nonsensical!)
#HESM
This hashtag stands for ‘Higher Education Social Media’. It’s used by professionals working in higher education, mostly on Twitter. This is a useful hashtag to keep an eye on – you'll tend to find out about trends and challenges within the sector, upcoming conferences/resources, as well as lots of supportive voices!
Image Description
An image description is longer and more detailed than alt text. Where alt text provides the most important details about an image, an image description adds more specific details and context, such as the location of an object, colours, surroundings, names of people (if important). Image description copy should not contain emojis.
NB - image descriptions are longer than alt text, but should not be overly poetic in style or provide obvious details (E.g., that someone has 2 eyes, a nose, and a mouth)
Social Media Glossary (Channel Specific Terms)
Facebook
Social media platform and networking site created by Mark Zuckerberg, owned by Meta.
Meta
Company led by Mark Zuckerberg that owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram.
Metaverse
(I) Simulated digital world using AR, VR and blockchain, encompassing digital societies and economies.
(II) The new focus of Meta (the company formerly known as Facebook), who claim to be attempting to build the metaverse.
Page
Used by companies, businesses, schools etc. Essentially a free webpage. Functions similarly to a personal Facebook profile, allowing businesses to send and receive messages, post updates, as well as like, comment on and share others’ posts.
Carousel
A post containing two or more images (or slides).
Grid (aka ‘Feed’)
The ‘grid’ refers to the grid-like view of your personal Instagram feed. It displays your images in horizontal rows of three.
Grid Post
Refers to any post you create which will then appear on your grid. This can be a single image, or a carousel of images, or Reel.
Highlights
Collections of Story posts that you have chosen to highlight, e.g., a Highlight containing all your Stories from International Women’s Day, or Freshers Week.
Reel
Short video content. It does not disappear after 24 hours but remains on your feed, unlike a Story.
Story
Content which disappears from your profile after 24 hours. This can be a photo, grid post, Reel, video, or text and/stickers. Stories do not save to your grid, but can be collated into groups and saved as ‘Highlights’.
Trends, Updates and Inspiration
Twitter - #HESM
Great way of quickly finding out what’s going on in Higher Education Social Media (aka #HESM) - tends to be institutions’ social media managers/staff responsible for accounts.
Very good for discovering what others find effective/not, challenges they’re facing, new apps or resources, networking, and finding out about any upcoming events/conferences.
Hootsuite Blog
Covers wide range of topics – scheduling, planning, trends and app updates, tips and tricks, social media strategy, etc.
Has links to free resources (including social media hashtag dates, content calendar)
Can also find link to their newsletter, which will send updates straight to your inbox. They regularly hold webinars and produce reports which can be helpful.
Social Media Today - Newsletter
Regular updates on all things social media, straight to your inbox with the option of daily emails or a weekend version collating everything from the week’s daily messages.
The website also covers a wide range of topics and news and is worth checking if you’d rather avoid adding to your inbox.
Planning and Editing Content
AirTable
Database/calendar resource – great for planning and logging content (this includes your copy, images, campaigns), and recording when and where you’ll publish it, as well as who is responsible for specific content. UofG Arts use a lightly customised Content Calendar Template. Possible to invite team members, and can pay for upgrades, but the free version is sufficient.
UofG Photo Library
Photos of UofG campus always perform well on social – great collection here, along with downloadable video assets too – end boards, marque etc.
UofG Brand Guidelines
One-stop shop for UofG-specific guides and in some instances tutorials and downloadable templates. Includes language & style, video (with links to tutorials), and UofG social media.
Resources for Accessibility, Diversity and Inclusion
Accessible Social – Alexa Heinrich
Leading expert in accessible social media. Website includes accessible social checklist, video guides (including how to write Alt Text), colour contrast chart, emoji use, and captioning. Alexa also has a newsletter you can sign up to – roughly monthly schedule and focuses on social media and accessibility.
Cooper Hewitt Guidelines for Image Description
Very detailed, comprehensive guide breaking down how to write image descriptions and covers a variety of formats, depending on where the description is required (alt text, caption, long form description) Explains how to structure and order your descriptions, and how to ensure they’re accessible and inclusive.
UCL – Diversity & Inclusion Calendar 2021 – 22
Downloadable calendar for academic year featuring key dates of religious festivals, as well as equality, diversity and inclusion-related events. This is updated annually, and the public can contribute dates. (NB – these are UK dates and not US dates)
Emojipedia
Thinking about using emojis in your copy? You can check here to see how a screenreader might read out an emoji – some make more/less sense than others!
Hemingway App
Use to make writing clearer – very helpful when creating content aimed at non-academic audiences.