Staff and academic audiences

Staff and Academics will have an overview of all social channels but will be heavily reliant on Twitter to receive up to date information, not just about the University but about issues affecting the sector (Twitter is widely regarded as the best source of breaking news).

However, Staff and Academics should never use social media to break news or news that has not been confirmed by the university (PR are the first contact for this). We would encourage news being shared via internal channels first (e.g. HertsHub , UHQ emails) and that social media is a way to amplify that and ensure that it reaches more of our audience, where appropriate.

Staff and academics also use Twitter to promote research and other interests. This can be a rich area for retweeting on behalf of the University, showcasing some of the work of the Staff and Academics. LinkedIn is used currently but not as consistently or actively by our staff and academic community.

How do I engage my fellow staff and academics in using social media?

This group will have a presence on LinkedIn, for more professional and career specific interests, but as a key business engagement platform, staff advocacy on this channel can be a remarkably powerful tool. However, not everyone will know where to start.

To encourage more engagement with LinkedIn from your fellow staff and academics, ensure you:

• Leave prompts for their input.
• Lead by example, with more senior members.
• Ask or motivate their involvement (motivations include elevating their own personal brands by association, driving more and faster revenue generation and more)
• Educate them to empower them. There are misconceptions that LinkedIn is just somewhere you go when you’re looking for a job, and those that have been at the University for a number of years probably already have a rich internal network of contacts and don’t see the value. Highlight the benefits of being present on LinkedIn, beyond job hunting, e.g.
  • Keeping an eye on competitor institutions
  • Keeping abreast of key research sector or industry news and opinions
  • Accessing training and development opportunities
  • Building a captive audience for sharing of research etc
• Leave them with confidence their input is valued and teach them the basics of posting in association with the university, such as:
  • Tag the university
  • Ensure you have permissions
  • Ensure you’re not sharing offensive content

Similarly, Twitter can be an excellent platform for sharing research and keeping abreast of industry or research sector news. At present there is good engagement with Twitter amongst the academic community, but this could be amplified by regularly tagging the University in posts, linking to relevant areas of the website and encouraging sharing of colleagues content amongst teams or departments (via personal Twitter profiles or professional), to increase breadth of reach.

What about tone of voice?

Our communication style internally is honest, informative and clear. This is particularly true in the UHQ emails, and for content created for staff on HertsHub. These principles should apply to engage with staff and academics on social media too. Even when the subject matter or content relates to complex research, a clear tone of voice and message works best to ensure it resonates with a broad staff/academic base and is relatable for all.

There is a temptation to want to convey the complex in a complex way, but this is not recommended for any of our audiences. Social media is a place for snapshots of digestible information which can prompt audiences to delve deeper, but they should still get a clear sense of the theme/story from the content of your post, regardless of platform.

Best practice

Messaging examples

Platform examples

Our platforms

Get in touch

If you have any questions please contact a member of the team: