Social media best practice

Tips for community groups on how to use social media to promote their work across their communities.

The most commonly used social media platforms:

  • Facebook: best for spreading good news, promoting events, looking for volunteers
  • Instagram: preferred amongst young people. A very visual platform, so should be used with bright, good quality pictures/videos.
  • LinkedIn: making connections with local business, looking for funding from businesses/organisations
  • Twitter: a good place to promote events and initiatives
  • TikTok: is on the rise and became one of the most influential platforms. All information needs to come from the video posted.

There are many guides on the internet on best use of social media platforms that can show you step by step how to create a profile and the best way to start creating a presence there.

Videos have become the most preferred type of content on all social media platforms. Posting regular, short videos will contribute to a better reach and engagement from the audience.

Tips on how to make a good video:

  • You don’t need a professional camera to get a high quality video, smartphones have very good cameras themselves
  • Videos for social media should be of a short length, ideally under 1 minute and a half
  • Camera settings should be on either Full HD (FHD) or Ultra HD(UHD) on Android OR 4K on Iphone
  • The device needs too be stable – use a tripod for stationary videos; if you want to walk/move around make sure you take slow steps and you hold the phone with both hands
  • Sounding – make sure that your speech doesn’t get covered by background noise, the wind and traffic are major issues as it can disturb the sound to the point where it’s not understandable
  • Use microphones – these are the best solution to make sure people can hear what you say – can be purchased online for reasonable prices
  • If you don’t have microphones and you don’t have a budget to buy them, try to record your speech in a quiet room. If you are outside, look for a place protected from the wind, away from traffic and not too crowded
  • Light – natural light is ideal for videos, but it’s better to have artificial light if it is too dark. Make sure that the subject you are filming is facing the light.
  • Editing: there are several free beginner friendly apps you can use to edit a video including: CapCut, Adobe Rush etc. Mobiles also have inbuilt editing apps that can be quite useful.
  • Captions: due to accessibility reasons, but also due to the fact that people might watch a video on mute, all videos are required to have cations. These can be added in apps such as CapCut, or on the social media platform before posting the video.