Discover your Welcome Mat: How social media can become your
office’s new front door
Published:
Friday, March 20, 2015 - 14:03
Discover your “Welcome Mat”: How social media can become your office’s new front door
Friday, March 27
9-10 am
Light refreshments served at 8:45 am
Location: Residential Life and Housing Office
Presented by: Megan Wyett & Ryan Troup with special guest Kristin Glass
Sign up here: http://goo.gl/forms/HYNgY2P9JK
(Please forward this email to other staff/faculty members who might be interested in attending)
What does your department’s
social media brand say about its mission and values?
Many departments jump into the use of social media
without prior planning, but without a well-developed and
thought through plan, you might do more harm than good
when trying to reach your audience and meet your goals.
This interactive session will help you to create a
“welcome mat” approach via social media by critically
thinking about your department’s digital identity
online.
Social Media is constantly developing as an influential factor in marketing and creating opportunities to facilitate learning in higher education. With statistics like those in the Campus Quad showing that college students spend an average of 3.6 hours a day on their cell/smart phones (up from 3.3 hours last year) professionals in higher education have begun to realize that we must latch onto this opportunity to reach our students.
As departments within higher education are beginning to gain momentum within social media, student focuses within the media are beginning to change. Campus Quad also reported that students are beginning to use Facebook less because it is “seen as uncool because parents and grandparents are on the site,” additionally it was reported by Courtney Rubin in the New York Times that an experiment was done earlier in 2013 to see how little students were using their e-mail and a library science professor at Purdue found that on average students were using their email for six minutes a day. With the use of technology and social media constantly changing, it is important that we as student affairs professionals gain up-to-date skills to facilitate social media marketing and create a constant voice throughout our marketing.
With recent rushes to begin utilizing social media platforms for one’s department it is often easy to overlook the authenticity and brand behind your social media voice. Throughout this session, we will focus around building a proactive and cohesive social media focus marketing plan for your multi-purpose office, area or knowledge community. Within an office, knowledge community or area you represent multiple facets of the student affairs experience and trying to represent them accurately while engaging your audience can be difficult. In this session attendees will walk away with a practical and focused template for how they can create an engaging and authentic plan. It will include interactive conversations about what your brand is and how you differentiate it between the institutions and that of your office or area. Discussions surrounding who your audience is and how to best reach them via the various platforms will practical research that supports college student digital identity development and outreach.
Learning outcomes:- Help participants explore the impact of their departmental goals on the branding and approach surrounding social media by creating dialogue surrounding marketing opportunities to develop the branding of your department.
- Provide participants with resources and tools to leave the presentation with action steps to facilitate a social media brand for their department centered around their department’s mission and goals.
- Enhance participants’ toolkit of ways in which social media can be utilized for marketing, communication, and student enrichment.
