Daily Titan California State University, Fullerton
Best Social Media Strategy In the past few years, social media has become increasingly crucial to the success or failure of a company. Incorporating humour, holding giveaways, or fun facts are merely a few ways in which a company can create a conversation with its followers. The Daily Titan has had a Facebook fan page and Twitter page for the past two years. As a commuter campus, gaining the attention of these commuters was no easy task so we had to develop a plan to promote the paper. We first set the goals we sought to achieve: increase the number of followers on both Facebook and Twitter by 25% & begin and maintain that conversation with our followers.We didn’t want to be a fan page that doesn’t interact with its followers; we wanted interaction, we wanted a following for our content. Therefore, we had a schedule set up with editorial in which we would post a maximum of 4 social media posts per media per day. We did this to prevent too much clutter between advertising and editorial content. We wanted to incorporate as many platforms as we could into one marketing campaign. We did so by holding weekly contests on our Facebook and Twitter page. These contests consisted of random questions about our Cal State Fullerton campus or the Daily Titan itself. An example was “what is the average distance commute for CSUF students?” We received a huge amount of response from our followers, some posts receiving as many as 40+ comments and replies. Having these ongoing throughout the semester created that consistent conversation we were trying to achieve. Our followers would answer these questions and the first person to answer correctly would be awarded a prize, whether it be Universal Studios tickets or free pizza vouchers. The winner would be personally messaged and asked to come into our office to pick up their prize.
Daily Titan California State University, Fullerton
Daily Titan California State University, Fullerton
We also incorporated our social media with our paper into one giveaway called our “Spotlight Contest.” By using a Facebook application installed on our fan page, students could enter our contest multiple ways, from liking us on Facebook, to following us on twitter, to submitting their CSUF email address. After a given period of time, a winner would be chosen and their name would be hidden in the paper. This encourages entrants to pick up the paper on a more consistent basis.
Our Facebook fan page was only created 2 years ago. Attempting to move over our “friends” on our personal Daily Titan page deemed more of a challenge than previously thought. We did so upon discovering a limit on one’s number of friends. In the past year, we have more than doubled our likes with it currently being nearly 2,200 followers. Our campus is a commuter campus and it has been a difficult journey in getting students to interact with our Facebook and Twitter. It’s important to understand our followers and how to speak to them. We have been making progress these past few years and it can only go up from here.