Social media
Support and advice for those who use, or are thinking of using, social media in their work.
Page shortcuts:
- Why use social media
- Getting started with your channel
- Images and film
- Inspiration, guides and trends
- Lund University on social media
You are welcome to contact your local communications officer to discuss whether and, if so, how you could use social media in your activities.
Contact a communications officer
Why use social media?
Social media provides opportunities for co-creation, dialogue, engagement and interaction with your target group. Successfully communicated content allows you to spread your message very quickly, to a large number of people. You also have the opportunity to direct your communication to very specific target groups.
Getting started with your channel
Working with a social media channel is an undertaking that requires time and commitment. If you open an account, you will need to monitor the channel and its posts regularly, create relevant content that invites interaction and reaches the intended target groups, as well as make sure that questions and comments are addressed and, in many cases, encouraged. You also need to be present in the channel to keep track of new formats, trends and behaviours.
Questions to be asked before you get started
- Why should we be in this channel? We sometimes create new accounts in channels just because others have, but forget to consider whether our content is relevant or our target group uses the channel.
- Is Lund University already in the channel? Can we coordinate? Can we learn from each other?
- Has the purpose of the account been clarified and can it be formulated?
- Have time and resources been allocated for the work? Successful social media initiatives require time to learn, listen, establish a dialogue and gain social media intelligence, as well as to formulate and package the material in a manner that fits the channel and invites interaction. As a public authority, we are also obliged to monitor our channels, respond to incoming questions and remove any illegal material.
- Has the line manager and others concerned been informed or included in the work?
- Are there procedures for handling illegal or unwanted materials?
- Are there procedures for preserving and disposal, according to the university's guidelines?
- Have clear goals and procedures for evaluation been developed?
Recommendations for account descriptions, name and profile picture
How to reach your target group
Creating content that creates value for your target audience to engage with is central to social media. Everything you produce should raise an issue, a thought, a feeling or a need. If you only want to work with one-way communication and use the channels as a bulletin board, social media is not the right way to go.
It is important to take the step of choosing a focus for the account regarding both content and target group. Visual continuity is important, so that users can quickly recognise the sender. An account in which content sprawls too much often becomes uninteresting to follow. In the same way, consistent frequency of posts is more important than how many posts you actually publish.
In other channels, such as Facebook, the page itself is less important – here it’s all about targeting each post by advertising it to one or more smaller groups, for example.
Furthermore, working towards narrower target groups facilitates setting concrete and measurable goals for your communication.
The algorithms control the channel
Social media is largely controlled by the algorithms for each specific channel. The algorithms are constantly changing, which requires fast adaptation to new conditions. Learn more about how to stay up to date on the respective channel’s algorithms, development, and new features:
Tips on the different channels
Protect your account
Tips to minimise the risk of unauthorised access to your account:
- Change the password regularly, between one and four times per year. Never use the same password in several places.
- Avoid simple mistakes such as emailing passwords to a large group of colleagues.
- Use two-factor authentication. This comes in various forms, but the most common is that in addition to the ordinary password, you are sent a code via SMS when logging in from a new device, for example. You can easily activate two-factor authentication on an existing account, by going into the channel’s security settings and turning it on.
- Link the account to a shared email address if possible. Unfortunately, most channels only offer access to the company page via your private account, which automatically means your private email address is the one that gives you access. Where possible, however, you should use a role-based email address rather than an individual one.
- Minimise the number of administrators. Do not grant more colleagues than necessary access to the organisation’s account. Always have one or two administrators – with full privileges and access to all functions on the site – and make other colleagues editors or similar if that kind of division exists.
- Remember to remove colleagues who are no longer working on the account.
Source: Sveriges Radios handbok för sociala medier (in Swedish)
If the problem of an unauthorised person having taken over the account arises nonetheless, there are often a few different approaches to changing password as a way of regaining access to the account. Most channels also have contact details or forms you can use to report that an account has been hacked, and thereby get the account closed down.
Images and film
In order to stand out and get people’s attention, your content must be readily accessible and clear – your audience should be able to quickly and easily grasp and respond to your content. You have about three seconds to grab users' attention. All communication in social media becomes more effective by including images and/or video content.
Please note that videos published on the University's social media are subject to The law on accessibility to digital public services. This means, among other things, that you must caption your videos:
Inspiration, guides and trends
Meltwater offers blogs, guides, reports and free webinars on social media and digital marketing:
The Swedes and the Internet is a an annual study conducted by The Swedish Internet Foundation, which also maps how we use social media:
The Swedes and the internet, summary in English
The Storykit blog gathers ideas, inspiration and plenty of handy social media how-tos:
Social Media Today is keeps you updated on the latest social media news:
Social media guides
The Swedish Radio Social Media Handbook gives you tips on how to create editorial strategies, handle criticism, create dialogue and how to present your content using images, videos and links:
Swedish Radio's Social Media Handbook (in Swedish)
Storykits guide ”How to structure a winning scripts for social videos” focus on the copy as the most important part of video creation for social channels. Download the pdf guide to take part of all the tips.
How to write winning scripts for videos on social channels, on storykit.io
Lund University on social media
Lund University has university-wide accounts in the channels below. There are also other accounts within LU – if you have questions, please contact your immediate communications officer.
- Lunds universitet
- Lund University
- Lund University Abroad
- Lund University Alumni Network
- Lunds universitet forskning
Youtube
TikTok
Read more about the purpose, objectives and contact persons for these channels through the matrix below:
Contact
Please contact your nearest communications officer to discuss whether and, if so, how you could use social media in your activities.
Contact a communications officer
For questions regarding the content on these pages, contact:
Anna Johnsson
Communications officer
Corporate Communications
anna_v [dot] johnsson [at] kommunikation [dot] lu [dot] se (anna_v[dot]johnsson[at]kommunikation[dot]lu[dot]se)
+46 46 222 70 21
Image and media bank
Download images, templates, logos, fonts and music files from the Lund University Image and media bank.
Want to start a blog?
Corporate Communications offers ready-to-use templates in WordPress, in accordance with the University’s graphic profile.
Disposing of information on social media
Information published on social media is considered to be public documents and must therefore be treated in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.