SAMHSA 2019 Awareness Day

Social Media Tips

This resource provides tips on promoting content through social media.

What should I promote on social media?
You can promote anything you put online on social media. If you have an event, a Twitter chat, or a graphic you developed, pushing it out on social media is a great way to reach your intended audience.

Here are a few examples of things you can promote on social media:

  • Facebook events
  • Twitter chats
  • Live events
  • Studies and research
  • Social campaigns
  • Graphics

Which platforms should I promote on?
You should decide where to promote your materials based on whichever platforms your audience is on. If you want to reach middle-aged females, for example, Facebook is your prime platform. If you want to reach youth and teens, Snapchat might be the best option.

Know where your audience is and meet them there. Dedicate some time to researching where your intended audience is engaging. However, you should have a realistic idea of how much capacity your team has to maintain that presence. Social media platforms take a lot of time and energy to maintain, so make sure you master one before moving onto the next.

What should I include?
Each platform has specific requirements and best practices. If you are promoting on Twitter, you may not use the same language or content as you would use on Facebook or Instagram.

Here are a few general best practices for all social media platforms:

Include a call to action (tell your audience what they can do)
This may be signing up for an event or just clicking a “like” button. Whatever your post is, there should be a suggested action for the user to keep them engaged with your content.

Include a link when appropriate.
Don’t just reference an event, research, etc.—include a link to the relevant web page with more in-depth information. Since social media is geared toward bite-sized, short-form content, give your users a brief snapshot of what it is you’re showing them, and then direct them to where the information is kept.

Include an image.

  • Social media posts with visuals get 180 percent greater engagement.
  • Tweets with images receive 150 percent more retweets.
  • Images make up 93 percent of the most engaging posts on Facebook.

There are many free resources (with free tutorials) that will help you create images without investing a ton of time. Here are just a few:

Include relevant hashtags and handles.
One of the strengths of using social media to promote your content is that you can leverage relevant audiences to send out your message to a wider group of people. Make sure that when you promote specific campaigns or reference a user, you mention the individual or organization in the post. As events and campaigns often have specific hashtags associated with them, make sure you add those hashtags when applicable; the organizations running those campaigns will be looking for content.

Here are a few guides on how to tag on different social media platforms:

Last Updated: 04/29/2019