Summer is almost upon the higher education world. You know what that means for enrollment and marketing offices - planning committees, mailing calendar adjustments, strategy meetings, year-end recaps.
If a topic of conversation is going to be social media strategy for the upcoming year, you may want to follow some simple tips to keep the meetings on-topic, engaging and productive.
1. Keep your guest list small
If you’re holding campus-wide meetings (small schools) or department-wide meetings (larger schools), keep the invite list to a minimum. Your committee should have a decision-maker, an organizer, and a group of do-ers. The decision-maker can be someone like a Dean of Enrollment or a VP of Communication/Marketing, since you need a person of power and influence to actually make your group’s suggestions see the light of day. An organizer sets up the meetings, agenda topics, and keeps every on task. Lastly, and most importantly, the do-ers are staff members involved in social media daily, either listening or communicating with the audience. Strategies and goals come from the top, then the organizer facilitates tasks, and the do-ers put the plan into action.
2. Celebrate the small achievements
Did you office run a successful Class ofFacebook group this year? Has your school actively tweeted for the past month? Celebrate your accomplishments first. It will give the group energy to maintain or even implement new tools to help communicate and listen to your audiences.
3. Stay on topic
Establish a format for your social media group meetings. Twice a month, I meet with about 10-15 staff members representing different parts of the campus to discuss social media use at Emerson College. I start with a five minute update about each active school-wide social media platform - Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. We give a summary of the statistics, popular stories and key observations we made about the audience’s interactions. Then, I update the group with news in the social media sphere that may affect their office (recently the Facebook privacy and “Like” changes from f8, etc). Lastly, we plan on action items for the next two weeks. Keep them manageable and measurable. Don’t say “let’s implement a Twitter account for the college and start tweeting.” Instead, plan to “Sign up for the account, upload a profile image, create a biography and a background.” You have to start somewhere and grow your implementations over time.
4. Keep in touch
Your meetings should be held every other week. A single meeting will grow some big ideas but they’re likely to never see the light of day. Stick to a schedule and create a Google site, listserv or email list for group members to give updates. Unless everyone is on the same page with strategy and goals, your social media presence will quickly become unmanageable.
5. Make it fun
Social media is fun for your audience - and it should also be fun for your staff. If you find examples of amazing things other companies have done to interact with their fans, show your group. Get them excited about the possibilities for your school. Remember, running a social media strategy for your college is not a 9am-5pm job - it requires a dedicated commitment even outside the office.
And, if you schedule your meetings before 11:00am, buying some coffee and donuts for your group will boost attendance. Just sayin’. What social media goals do you have this summer for your college?
Photo credit: tiarescott
Thank you SO much for this article. I work on social media marketing for my campus’s transportation department and my goals for this summer include completing a draft of our social media strategy. So far, I’ve got Part 1 (what we’ve done so far) and Part 3 (my social media wish list) down, but documenting what I want to do in the near future - and advising my colleagues on what will work and what might not - will take some time. I’ve had to caution myself against drilling down too specifically (i.e. what tone should my Tweets take), or else the strategy will never get done!
In the interim, my goals include writing more blog entries in response to popular demand and figuring out how to integrate more user-generated content.
Great article, I enjoyed the tips and find them very useful.
I also write a blog on marketing as well…
please visit
https://www.marketmpb.blogspot.com
Matt
Great article, I enjoyed the tips and find them very useful.
I also write a blog on marketing as well…
please visit
https://www.marketmpb.blogspot.com
Matt
Productivity in the workplace can be hindered but also heightened depending on the usage of the application. Companies choose to block or not block social media apps. Unfortunately they are missing out on that grey area where social media apps can be utilized to further inovation and productivity. Palo Alto Networks came out with this whitepaper talking about how to block social media apps and when it is appropriate to let employees utilize these apps productivly. To block or not? Check it out: https://bit.ly/d2NZRp