Your campus social media manager’s job is never done. They’re on call 24/7, very few people understand exactly what they do all day, and their talent and expertise are regularly dismissed by colleagues and the general public. Often they’re not appropriately compensated for their skills, overtime hours, and the comments and DMs they monitor and respond to may hurt personally even if they're not meant for them.
Monitoring and listening seem like the same thing, right? It can be hard to understand the difference between these two activities. You’ve probably even used the words interchangeably. We’re here to tell you there are critical differences between them; differences that prove monitoring alone is not enough. Once you start listening, you’ll realize the moments and opportunities you missed when you thought you were listening.
“Starting social media accounts is the puppy adoption of higher ed” is a Darron Bunt quote that we repeat often. Does your campus have hundreds of campus accounts creating confusion for your audience? Research shows that your prospective and admitted students often turn to Instagram to get an insider’s view on campus life. If their search terms return a handful of inactive accounts before the official, well-managed accounts, it impacts their perception of your campus.
If you work on a small campus, chances are you’re a master at multitasking. Depending on the size of your campus, social media may be the responsibility of one person, or less than one, so it’s important to get the most out of everything you do. If that’s where you sit right now, we can help.
For the last three years, we’ve been researching and analyzing online conversation about higher ed. We shared some of the multi-year trends we captured along the way, which also led us to eight recommendations higher ed marketers can use to drive their communication and marketing strategy.
Higher ed marketing isn’t synonymous with pushing boundaries, but some CMOs are trying to change that. We sat down with Jenny Petty, University of Montana, and Gabriel Welsch, Duquesne University, to pick their brains on the importance of boundary pushing in higher ed marketing.