Social Media Guide

Owned by Georgia Vachon Westerlund
2023-10-23
3 min read

Responsibility

It is important to keep in mind that posts on WARG’s social media platforms represent the team and all of it’s members, the University of Waterloo, EngSoc, WEEF, MEF, and all of our other sponsors. By posting on behalf of the Waterloo Aerial Robotics Group, you have the responsibility of ensuring that your post respectful, professional, and adheres to the guidelines listed below.

General Guidelines

Before posting something on one of the WARG social media platforms, posts should be vetted to ensure that the adhere to the following guidelines. All new posts along with their corresponding photos should be posted in #ops-digital-media where they can be discussed and edited before posting. These rules are important in order to ensure that our social media branding remains clean, consistent and professional.

Question 1: Does my post support the WARG brand image?

A greater effort has been made in recent terms to cleanup our team’s digital presence. For this reason, it is important to ensure that our social media posts adhere to a certain quality standard. Details regarding the current branding standards and recommendations can be found in the Brand Style Guide.

The following are examples of elements that make a post less appealing, and may undermine brand image:

  • Poorly selected or unedited photos

  • Captions that are not thoroughly thought-out

  • Captions that contain spelling mistakes or typos

There are few quantitative metrics that may be used to evaluate a post’s quality in accordance to the brand style guide. It is important to use good judgement and get a second opinion (by discussing in #ops-digital-media) before publishing a post to the team’s social media platforms.

Question 2: What story is my post trying to tell?

Depending on the platform, the kind of story may change. For example, posts on Instagram tend to be geared towards getting general interest in the team. For this reason, posts on Instagram are more informal, and may include funny captions with emojis.

Other platforms such as LinkedIn may have a different quality standard. For instance, posts on LinkedIn tend to be longer and use more professional language. LinkedIn posts tend to contain an action items, which encourage readers to visit our website or donate to our team. The number of action items in a post should be minimal to avoid confusion.

Question 3: Am I posting at the correct time?

Posting at certain times may be better for engagement than others. For example, people tend to check LinkedIn when the are on their lunch break at work. For this reason, it is beneficial to post on LinkedIn on a weekday from 11 AM to 3 PM. Posting on LinkedIn in the evenings should be avoided.

Posts on Instagram may be published the evening, as its user base tends to be active multiple times throughout the day. Again, there is no need to use strict qualitative metrics to find the best time to post; your best judgement is sufficient here.

Reposting

Reposting is fantastic for engagement and is encouraged for all current or past WARG members.

Replying to Direct Messages

Some prospective members may reach out the the team via direct message on Instagram or LinkedIn. Messages should be answered to in a timely manner as much as possible. Keep messages clean and professional, free of any spelling mistakes and typos. See the Brand Style Guide for more details.