Kansas State University

The university’s overall Twitter strategy gives followers a view of what’s going on at K-State right now. The @KState twitter account shares campus events, news, achievements, awards, reminders, campus safety and research. We curate the #KState conversation with shared content (retweets) from campus accounts. We heavily use hashtags to group conversations around the same topic. See hashtag best practices.

Twitter is fast paced and tweets quickly get pushed lower in crowded news feeds. So be sure to post on a regular basis. Overall, successful university accounts tweet 5-10 times a day with a mix of content ranging from educational to entertaining.

Here are some tips to get started on your Twitter journey!

1. We are family! Make sure your Twitter icon is consistent with our university style. Once your icon is created by it really shouldn’t change unless your department, college or program goes through a rebranding. For graphic design assistance, contact us at social media@k-state.edu.

2. Choose a visually appealing Twitter header. Your header is the background image that sits behind your profile photo. This is an opportunity to be creative and share an image that expresses your college/department/program/unit. Images should be re-sized to fit the dimensions (1500px by 500px). Canva, is a great resource to create your own Twitter header.

3. Choose a Twitter name and handle. Be sure to use “K-State” instead of “KSU.” Example: @KStateJobs not @KSUJobs.

4. Write an interesting and informative Twitter bio and include a link to your main webpage.

5. Join the #KState Twitter community. Follow and interact with various university official Twitter accounts. See our social media directory. Collaboration is key to a successful university twitter community. As an official university account be cautious of the accounts you follow. Following and or interacting with a local business or political Twitter account could potentially imply an endorsement.

6. Be sure to attend monthly Social Media Roundtable group meetings. These meetings are open to all social media administrators on campus to collaborate and learn about new social media trends.

See Twitter terms to know glossary.

Twitter Faux Pas
1. Too many #hashtags: Three or less is ideal. Read here for information on hashtag best practices.
2. Long links: Use Bitly to shorten links. An advantage to using Bitly is advanced tracking analytics options.
3. Sharing content directly from Instagram or Facebook. If you must share the same content from another social media channel, take a minute to post it directly to Twitter instead of sending people away from Twitter to see the original post.
3. Text speak: Avoid abbreviations and use full words.
4. Starting a tweet with a mention. Here’s why
5. Not responding to replies or messages. Be active with your audience. Exception, it is ok to ignore “trolls”. A troll is a person on the internet that loves starting arguments or upsetting people. The best thing you can do to fight an internet troll is to not answer.

Pinning a tweet to your profile

You can pin a tweet to your profile so that when others visit your profile page, it is the first Tweet they will see. You can change these out every week or so.

To pin a tweet:

1. Go to your profile page.
2. Find the Tweet you’d like to pin and click the ellipsis icon (•••).
3. Select Pin to your profile page.
4. Click Pin.

To unpin a tweet:

1. Go to your profile page.
2. On the Tweet that you have pinned, click the ellipsis icon (•••).
3. Click Unpin from profile page.
4. Click Unpin.