Social Media
The Department of English and Comparative Literature’s social media platforms are a space for promoting ECL related events, spotlighting the achievements of students, faculty, and alumni, and showcasing research.
All platforms are run by the Digital Literacy and Communications (DLC) Lab’s graduate student social media team.
Please direct all email inquiries or questions to dlc_lab@unc.edu.
Our Platforms
The DLC Social Media team is here to maximize the reach and extend the impact of ECL work in our surrounding communities. The DLC manages all departmental social media platforms: Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn, which together reach a viewership of approximately 3,500 people. The social media team composes, designs, and publishes each post with a careful eye towards the affordances and conventions of these platforms.
The team will work with the content you provide to develop the best social media strategy for maximizing engagement and reaching the target demographic; whether they be prospective students, university administrators, or scholarly peers. The content creation process works best if you come with a clear vision of what you hope to achieve with your content.
Submit Social Media Content!
To be featured on departmental platforms, you must complete the web calendar / social media request form in advance of the date you would like promotion to begin (see details below).
Please Note: The social media calendar is subject to change based on time-sensitive promotional requests and departmental priorities. Additionally The DLC reserves the right to adjust graphics and captions in accordance with account branding and voice. See FAQ for more information.
The DLC social media team typically publishes 1 to 3 posts per week (weekdays only) across LinkedIn and Instagram. We aim to keep viewers engaged by publishing a variety of content and balancing event promotions with non-promotional posts.
The DLC publishes 2 kinds of promotional posts on the DOECL’s social media platforms. Below you will find a description of each post type, their associated submission deadlines, and eligibility requirements.
Promotional Posts
- Round-Up Post = Submit form ONE week in advance. We will promote your event in a “round-up” style post alongside other events taking place that week. The post will be published on Instagram and Facebook the Monday preceding your event.
- Stand-Alone Post or Campaign = We will publish one or more stand-alone posts on Instagram and Facebook promoting your event. To publish a stand-alone post or a campaign (2+ posts) on our social media platforms, you must sign up for your desired posting date and schedule a consultation with a member of the DLC Social Media Team using our social media request form.
Announcements & Other Content
You may also request social media posts sharing important announcements spotlighting the achievements of students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Please see the Q&A section for more information and examples.
ECL Social Media FAQ
Acceptable visuals might include: photos, illustrations, GIFs, short videos, flyers.
TIP: The best way to capture a viewer’s attention is with a bright, high-quality photograph that relates to your content. However, if a flyer is the preferred visual, strive to keep text minimal and easy to read and be sure to include all information on the flyer in the caption. If you have any questions about potential marketing materials, contact the DLC Lab. We would be happy to answer questions and consult with you over your design. Please view previous posts on our social media platforms for examples.
PLEASE NOTE: The DLC Lab reserves the right to change, alter, or edit submitted visuals to align with industry standards and departmental branding guidelines.
It is important to consider the significance of visual representation in your image selection. When choosing an image, please ask yourself:
- “Who is represented here?”
- “What is being represented?”
- “How does this image reflect the department and my work?”
We also love to receive a wide range of content that helps our audiences get to know the department better! Examples of other content might include:
- announcements about fellowship awards
- book publications
- performances
- course offerings
- new faculty introductions
- ongoing projects in the public and digital humanities
- ‘behind-the-scenes’ content (e.g., archival research, classroom work, etc.)
- student and/or alumni features
A campaign is a series of 2+ unique posts that work to fully articulate the importance of your event. We must receive the request form one month in advance, and you must sign up for a consultation with a member of the DLC Team. In order to run an engaging, accurate, and in-depth campaign, we request that you submit the following:
- A unique high quality visual for each of the posts you plan to include in your campaign (e.g. related photos, fliers, headshots, graphics, behind-the-scenes photos, photos from previous years, illustrations, videos, etc.)
- A unique caption for each of the posts you plan to include in your campaign
By combining event advertisements into a regularly-scheduled, collective post we ensure that our viewers are not overwhelmed by daily promotional content; this optimizes viewer engagement, reduces the likelihood of disengagement with our content, and allows us to give event promotions the attention they deserve.
While the social media team has no control over each platform’s frequently-changing algorithms, there are some tangible steps you can take to ensure that your post has a better chance of being prioritized by the algorithm.
Lead Time – The best way to ensure your content gets seen is to submit it through our social media request form at least 1 week in advance. The sooner you can let us know about your social media requests, the better as our calendar is often full several weeks in advance.
Follow Us – Make it a regular practice to follow, like, save, share, and message ECL social media posts; regular engagement with ECL social media accounts plays an important role in ensuring that followers see our posts in their feeds.
Tag Us – We encourage you to tag us in your posts so we can re-share your content whenever possible. We also invite you to use Instagram’s new “collaborator” feature to make us a collaborator on your posts. When collaboration invites are accepted, the post will appear on both your Instagram account and also on our account. Depending on timing, tagging us / sending a collaboration invite does not guarantee a re-share, but it is appreciated nonetheless.
