MARKETING
BEST PRACTICES

Promoting the festival is a collective responsibility! The Manifest Team is responsible for mass marketing within the Columbia community. Manifest Liaisons are responsible for targeted marketing for your events and showcases.

See below for a breakdown of roles, as well as suggestions for targeted marketing and social media best practices.

Manifest Team's mass marketing responsibilities:

With rich modal and notification functionality and a robust suite of options, Stack makes building feature-heavy pages simple and enjoyable.

  • Student newsletters
  • Manifest website
  • Engage Portal announcements
  • Print mailings
  • Posters and handbills
  • General social media promotion
  • Day-of signage
  • Day-of program
  • Day-of building greeters

Manifest Liaisons are responsible for targeted marketing. This could include:

  • Department/org social media
  • Posters and handbills for your events
  • Announcements via Canvas
  • Department/org newsletters
  • Class meetings
  • Mailings
  • Student committees
  • Invites to alumni and industry professionals
 
 
 

General Social Media Guidelines

  1. Here is a great article for getting started with social media. Think of guests to the festival as customers, and the "product" you're selling are your showcases and your student's work.
  2. Invite your students, faculty, and staff to follow your department accounts.
  3. Post works-in-progress throughout the semester to build excitement leading up to Manifest.
  4. Share/tag alumni work from past years leading up to Manifest.
  5. Use social media to direct viewers to your showcases before and during Manifest.
  6. Encourage followers to tag you in posts and share these posts to your stories/feeds.
  7. Tag @cccmanifest and use festival hashtags (#CCCManifest, #ImagineManifest) in all Manifest-related posts!

Facebook Social Media Guidelines

Instagram Social Media Guidelines

  • Be sure to include captions in Instagram stories as well as feed posts.
  • Avoid using IG Live, if possible. Consider using Zoom, Twitch, or another accessible option.
 

Accessibility Best Practices

  1. Use capital letters for compound hashtags. For example: #ImagineManifest as opposed to #imaginemanifest. This allows screen readers to read hashtags easier.
  2. Use Plain Language in all captions. A checklist for writing in Plain Language can be found here.
  3. Create Image Descriptions for all images. Describe, in detail, what is happening in the image. See the example to the right. Note - do NOT use "alt text" on social media sites. Alt text is not supported on some social media platforms, and captions allow you to go more in depth.
  4. All videos should be close captioned. Here is some recommended software: Rev.com, Subtitle Horse, OverStream or Cadet and a link to caption videos using YouTube captioning: https://www.accessible-social.com/audio-and-video/captions. If captioning is not possible, an alternative is to request an ASL interpreter through Duriyah Wilborn, Manager of Interpreting Services at dwilborn@colum.edu, office phone: 312-369-8295. Please provide her with as much notice as possible regarding your needs.

Here's a Sample of an Image Description

Nell, a light-skinned person with short black hair, is outside on a bright day. They wear thick, black-rimmed glasses and smiles at the camera. They also wear a white and dark-colored quatrefoil collared shirt and a black and gold diagonal stripe bow tie.

 

More Resources

Accessible Social offers a variety of resources and guidance for generating social media content that is both accessible and effective.

Social Media Accessibility Toolkit Hackpad - a little outdated, but still a good source!

A practice form for writing image descriptions from the American Anthropological Association.