Brain Waves Blog

Lions and bots and trolls—oh my! Online conversations provide organizations with honest thoughts and feelings from their audiences, but are all of those mentions actual people? Bots and trolls aren’t just for science fiction and fairy tales anymore. 

Thanks to social media, the news cycle is now. Which means communications teams need to be plugged into their campus’s online conversation if they want to effectively monitor and manage a crisis. 

Leading the marketing communications efforts for West Virginia University’s largest academic unit, effective media relations was paramount in every aspect of our content strategy. As a Research 1 university, our faculty were frequently contacted by local, regional, and national media to share their expertise, whether it was on the environment, racial justice, labor movements, or more. 

Updated 9.5.2025

With public perception of higher education in decline, communicators have a particularly important role to play. But that role requires rethinking what we do and how we measure it. 

At Duke, we’re operating on the premise that YouTube isn’t just a bucket for holding video content. It’s actually social media. I’ll show you what I mean.