Facebook Best Practice Guide

Case Study: Ohio Tuition Trust Authority

Brand: CollegeAdvantage

Audiences:

1. Parents/Caretakers w/younger or older children

2. Grandparents

3. Other Family

4. Godparents/Family Friends

It’s important to address the majority of our account holders most of the time, parents and grandparents, but other family and friends can also be acknowledged.

Points of Investment:

· Pregnancy and birth

· Preschool (entrance)

· Kindergarten

· Elementary school

· Middle school

· High school

· College age adult

· Adult

Many account holders select the age-based portfolios as they are designed with the investment horizon in mind. We should always tell account holders that it’s never too late to open a CollegeAdvantage account for their child or for their own education.

Frequency and Time of Day:

· Posting is too frequent. Back it down to maximum once per day, but no less than 3 posts per week. Focus on quality content (see below).

· Optimal time of day is afternoon or early evening. Most account holders are working parents. Posting around lunchtimes or right before leaving the office could be ideal.

· Suspend all posts (across all platforms) in the event of national tragedies/emergencies. Issue a statement using our event templates. Defer to Crisis Communication Team if necessary. Resume posting in five business days (unless extenuating circumstances persist).

Voice and Tone:

· Under no circumstances do we ever give financial advice. We are a resource for information, and we present options based on our investment portfolios.

· Posts should be professional (no slang) and friendly, optimistic, future-focused, but empathetic and interested in real financial scenarios. Saving for college and the expense of college can feel burdensome. We present solutions for families and are here to help. We must foster trust among Facebook users consistent with the trust of our account holders.

· Respond to all comments. At this point, engagement is low. We should drive this up by responding to every comment on Facebook. (See below for customer service issues.)

· Proofread everything twice prior to posting. Consult Style Guide for terminology and use AP style.

Content Topics:

Ask a simple, open question as often as possible. We want to begin conversations; avoid push messaging.

· Account sign up

· Making contributions and withdrawals (automatic deductions)

· Did you knows & FAQs

· Tax info/What tax questions do you have?

· 529 vehicles (direct and advisor)

· What makes 529s unique?

· Ease of access via website

· Age based portfolios

· Contests & promotions

· Funding higher education/What worries you about saving for college?

· Student Loans

· Customer Service Team member feature

· Use UGC when possible

· Point to our branded site- free downloads and guides, “Learn more” or “Continue” to download

· Events w/ Partners: Ensure partners post and promote us, use #ohio529 at minimum.

· Events

· Ohio agency partnerships: Higher Education, Treasurer, Job and Family Services

Hashtags:

· #ohio529 or #collegeadvantage use on every post

· #529plan

· #529day (only on May 29)

· #529week (only during the week of May 29)

· Create for promos and contests building off base #ohio529 and #collegeadvantage; track for performance statistics

Links:

· Use Ow.ly or Bit.ly for links to reduce character count and for tracking purposes

Images:

· Use our color palette and digital assets as much as possible

· Very positive and bright

· Present diversity of investors (inclusive of persons of color)

· Children, College kids, Graduations, Families

· Use correctly sized images 1200 x 630 pixels as much as possible (see below for examples). Ask Graphic Designer (or Ad Agency) to resize an image or find alternate image if needed.

Videos:

· Use digital assets as much as possible (ads and shorts on YouTube)

· Use UGC when available

· Two video posts per month are the minimum recommended, ideal is once per week

Customer Service Issues:

Almost none of our followers request assistance through FB. We should promote this as an option to drive engagement and build trust. Here’s how:

· Use HootSuite Inbox feature for direct messages (not FB messenger). Set alerts and assign Social Media personnel to respond.

· If necessary, set up auto-replies using templates and based on key words. Verify that issue was resolved for customer. Provide Customer Service phone number.

· Research message bots for future use.

· Respond ASAP, preferably within an hour, no more than 24 hours.

· In the case of a hostile or negative comment, politely offer the person information to direct message. Handle all negative comments offline but be sure to post a response (see examples below).

Examples

Profile Optimization:

Good: call to action button, response time (should be shorter), description, customer service phone, website, address, hours, large number of followers shown, logo, cover image

Improvements to make: type of business should say financial services or similar

Content Problems:

This is off brand. Post fun things but stay on topic.

Quizzes are good idea but make sure people care about the topic. (1 like) Get followers to talk about themselves, not the 529 plan.

Character Counts: Ideal is less than 120, preferably less than 80.

Character count too high, 244, image truncated (not sized correctly), no branded hashtags.

Good character count, 111, but wasted by repeating text in title and meta tag and a long URL, no branded hashtags.

Image Issues: Ideal image size should be: 1200 x 630 (landscape), 630 x 1200 (portrait), 1200 x 1200 (square).

Close to ideal pixel count at 1200 x 675.

Not ideal pixel count/image size at 900 x 900.

Hashtags and Links: Ideal is 1–3 hashtags, always include #ohio529 or #collegeadvantage

Correct number of hashtags, but lacks #ohio529 or #collegeadvantage, wasted character count with a link to the very same FB page.

Four hashtags exceed ideal, and no branded hashtags. Revise to say: $28k is the average 529 account balance. #ohio529 #collegeadvantage #529Day (This is 76 characters and uses branded hashtags.)

Comment Responses:

Professional response to a positive comment, includes offer to direct message.

Professional response to negative comment/concern with offer to direct message.

General Observations:

Current Facebook stats: 28,000+ followers, extremely low engagement on posts. Even animal posts (May 29 at 2pm) performed badly and on 529 day (May 29). 529 day had way too many posts: 15. Rapid fire frequency only drives down engagement. 45 total likes among 15 posts.

Posts lack call-to-action and too much content is referring followers off-site. Develop guides and infographics for tips as branded content, make available for download. Follow up on downloads with email responses, add to newsletter. Direct followers to branded website for complex questions.

Organize info better and make the themes obvious. Content feels random. For example, create a category for Funding a College Education, make that a scheduled topic with regular frequency. Offer a funding guide to download. Offer events, podcasts, videos. Stop using so many other publications and sites that drive people off our branded media.

There’s too much push messaging. Switch to starting conversations, asking questions, and building community.

Other Social Platforms:

Twitter: Same content is on Twitter. Customize for this platform.

Instagram: No claimed presence on Instagram. Claim and build following as this captures the millennial demographic which is the next generation of college savers.

LinkedIn: See below. Missed opportunity to bring onto Facebook or provide him a more rewarding response.