In last month’s BU Social Media Communicators meeting, Nathaniel Boyle of Interactive Design presented on the challenges of maintaining BU’s brand identity standards (outlined at bu.edu/brand) on social networks. I asked if he would discuss some of these guidelines here. Nat, take it away!

Brand standards can be tricky and at times seem heavy-handed. The instinct is often to do your best within the guidelines established. Despite the best of intentions, this approach almost always winds up violating the guidelines.

In order to avoid degradation, distortion, or improper spacing of the BU logo or seal, and to maintain a suite of social presences that are presentably cross-branded across the University without any confusion as to what’s official and what’s not, we have established the following social media brand guidelines for University-wide usage. Following these guidelines will ensure you’re representing the University on third-party social media platforms appropriately.

Here’s the approach you should take:

• Consider your avatars, profile and background images to be extensions of your web presence.
• If you do not have a visual aesthetic to your web presence, consider social your opportunity to give yourself a consistent, recognizable look and feel.
• These are your social media accounts, so please consider the social “personality” you want your aesthetic to convey. And don’t be afraid to have fun!

To make this easier, we’ve compiled a series of themes that you can download. Each theme includes a Twitter avatar, Twitter background, and Facebook profile picture. I would recommend at least downloading one to get a sense of visual identity consistency, and also image sizes, etc.

And never forget the most important rule: DON’T use a BU logo as your graphical representation, unless it appears in a photo.

After reading Beth Schillaci’s post this morning on the significance of followers, likers and subscribers, I was reminded of a discussion I had last week. I was consulting with a team on setting up a Twitter account for their program, and someone asked me, “How many followers should we aim for?” This is not a unique question — I hear it all the time. As a numbers girl, I LOVE to be able to provide concrete numbers that indicate success, and I wish I could say that “followers” is a solid measure of success, but it’s not. Here’s why.

Let’s break this down a bit. Grab a pen and paper (or a blank document), and answer these questions:

- In one sentence, what is the goal of your Twitter account? (e.g., I want to drive more traffic to our application form; I want to generate more interaction between our Dean of Students and the freshman class; I want to react to comments and answer questions from the campus community)

- Based on this goal, who is your target audience? (prospective students in their junior and senior year of high school; the class of 2014; undergrads and grad students, faculty, staff and influential neighbors)

- What are they most interested in hearing about? (admissions guidelines and SAT test prep; summer jobs for college students; free events around campus and the surrounding city)

Now tape that to your monitor. Be mindful of your end goal at all times. Based on these criteria, you can build a solid, meaningful presence on Twitter. Don’t worry — if you don’t know the immediate answer to question #3, go back to #2 and do your research. Follow 50 (or 20 or 100) people you’ve identified in your target audience and listen to them for a week. Talk with them; retweet what is interesting or relevant to you and your goal.

The number of followers you accumulate is nowhere to be found in these steps. As Beth points out, “I would much rather have 10 people come in my store and buy something than 100 window shoppers”.

If you want me to build your followers to 1,000 by the end of this week, I can certainly tell you how to do that, as can many other websites and “social media gurus” (for a price). Will it give you a more engaged community? Probably not. Will it bring you back to your goal and ultimately help you succeed? Probably not. Your goal should be to find your most rabid, loyal fans and get them excited about what you’re up to.

See also:

• 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business (Chris Brogan)

• The Numbers Obsession (video) (Gary Vaynerchuk)

• 7 Social Media Truths You Can Ignore and Still Be Successful (Social Media Examiner)

• How Twitter increased my blog’s traffic by 300% in one week (Mack Collier)

(Image courtesy losgofres on Flickr)

Twitter in Plain English: Common Craft’s video is a perfect companion starting point to understanding the basics of Twitter. It explains the way Twitter works in “plain English”, and is a quick way to indoctrinate your team members if they ask you what Twitter’s all about.

Kevin Rose: 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers: Though I’m always cautious when someone asks me how to grow their followers the fastest (as we discussed yesterday, it’s about quality, not quantity) Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, has some great suggestions. I think the title should be “How to be more interesting on Twitter”. The article is over a year old but every point still holds true.

Gary Vaynerchuk’s Talk and Q&A at the 140 Characters Conference in April 2010: Another great video — Gary’s talk begins about 3 minutes in. His networking skills on Twitter and UStream helped Gary build his wine business into a web sensation, and helped him to get a 10-book deal with HarperCollins. Warning to sensitive souls: he has a bit of a foul mouth.

How to Run Successful Contests on Twitter: Something you might not need to focus on right at the beginning of your Twitter experiment, but once you start thinking about giveaways or other contests for your network, this information will be useful for you. Shortly, we’ll also share our experience with contests toward the end of this past school year.

Grow Bigger Ears in Ten Minutes: Chris Brogan gives some concrete steps to increase your ability to listen to what people are saying about you online — and listening is the whole point of this exercise, right? I highly recommend Chris Brogan’s blog — his thoughts on the purpose and execution of social media are spot-on.

While you’re thinking about Twitter, you also want to think about how your page will look (and tie in to the rest of your brand’s messaging and visual experience). Boston University’s Marketing & Communications group has recently created guidelines for social network icons and backgrounds.

What other articles or videos would you add to this list?