Help Us Spread the Word
Many of our faculty and staff are social media “influencers” with a following of family, friends, and colleagues. If you feel comfortable, we encourage you to share our college messaging with your own networks.
The first step is to follow the college on all of its channels. When you see posts that might resonate with your followers, share them, adding your own perspective if appropriate.
Check out our current campaign here.
College Channels
Social media isn’t one-size-fits-all, meaning content that will resonate on one channel won’t necessarily be effective on another. That’s why we have priority audiences for each channel and tailor our content accordingly. Here’s what we are currently focusing on:
NECC College Channel: Instagram
Audience: Current students, prospective students, alumni, faculty and staff
Content: High quality photos with limited text; stories, many with short videos or text overlay; campaigns with hash tags
NECC College Channel: Twitter
Audience: Legislators, media, and other external audiences; students; faculty and staff
Content: Links to news stories, event photos, trend stories; focus on tagging and retweeting
NECC College Channel: Facebook
Audience: Faculty and staff; alumni, community, parents, adult students
Content: links to news stories, newsroom content, event announcements, and photo galleries
NECC College Channel: LinkedIn
Audience: Alumni, current students, faculty and staff
Content: High level college news; alumni success stories; events targeting alumni; community college trends; career center news
YouTube
NECC College Channel: YouTube
Audience: Prospective and current students, faculty and staff
Content: All college-produced videos including TV ads, program and support service features, campaigns, etc
College-Affiliated Channels
If you are interested in creating a social media account for a college-affiliated group, department, program, club, or organization, we ask that you meet first with a representative from Marketing Communications.
Building a following, creating relevant content, and being prepared to respond quickly to questions and comments is a lot of work. Before deciding to create an account, you should consider the following questions:
- How do you plan to attract followers?
- Who will be updating and maintaining your social media account?
- What are your primary communication goals for your new account?
- Who is your audience, and what kind of content do they want?
- How will you measure the success of your account?
We ask that someone from Marketing Communications be an administrator on all college affiliated accounts, not to provide regular content or monitoring, but to assist if issues occur. All college affiliated accounts with a Marketing Communications administrator will be listed on the college’s website, providing visibility for your account.
The account must also have a Northern Essex employee as the official college administrator. When appropriate, a qualified Northern Essex student with a GPA of 2.5 or higher and no prior disciplinary history with the college can assist with account administration. Student administrative access can be revoked at any time by the Marketing Communications Department. Also, the college has the right to delete all accounts which have not posted content in four months.
Guidelines
Social media is a powerful tool, and, if not used correctly, it can lead to serious problems for an individual or an institution.
To promote a positive social media community, Northern Essex Community College (NECC) reserves the right to remove posts/content that are defamatory or use abusive language towards NECC, the community, and/or other users.
If you are active on social media, please follow these guidelines:
- Do not post confidential or proprietary information about NECC or other individuals. Follow federal policies and requirements, such as HIPAA and FERPA
- Be mindful that what you publish will be public, exist for a long period of time, and may be redistributed throughout the internet. Comply with all copyright laws and only post information to which you own the rights. (This includes music, art, literary works, photos, text, video, etc.)
- Proofread carefully, and, if a mistake is made, be quick to correct with an edit
- Content that promotes or depicts illegal activity, is threatening or harassing, includes obscenities, or defames a person, group or organization is prohibited and will be documented and removed
- Social media often spans traditional boundaries between professional and personal relationships. Use privacy settings to restrict personal information to otherwise public sites. Carefully and thoughtfully choose the photos and information you share as well as your profile photo or avatar
Official Hashtags
Hashtags are titles or phrases preceded by a hashtag that are used on most social media channels. While hashtags can be overused, there are some definite benefits, including the ability to categorize your content (#NECC2021), have your content included in a wider community (ex. #DualEnrollment), or strengthen a brand image (ex. #NECCStudentSuccess). Here is a list of the hashtags which are used most frequently at Northern Essex and we encourage you to use them with your own content.
#NECC
#NECCKnights (Athletics)
#NECCAcademics
#NECCAlumni
#NECCStudentSuccess
#NECCStudentLife
#NECCHonors
#NECCInternships
#SomosNECC
#WeAreNECC
#StartatNECC
#Transfer
#TransferIn
#Career
#AvanzaconNECC