When the Students are Away, We are Still at Play

At my institution, we are in the first of a four week break. Already, there is a noticeable difference in the engagement on our various social media sites. Any good social media manager can recognize and accept that the sites are going to be a little slow. "'Tis the season" I suppose. Better social media managers will be able to drive through this slower traffic and keep the momentum.

Here are a few ideas for your office/department social media while your students are away:

Pictures of campus - Sounds silly, but trust me, this is a legit piece of content. Most of your highly engaged users are also the ones with the most affinity for the institution. When they go on break, many feel "homesick" and these photos can help remedy those feelings. With a little prep work, you could actually crowdsource campus photos from your users while they are on campus.  Promote and tell them that the favorite photos collected will be shared during break. This gives them a desire to check back with you to see if their photo made the cut.

Top 10 Posts - Good social media managers keep tabs on how well posts have done with their audience.  Take the Top 10 posts from the year and count them down into the new year.  Best part for the social media manager is that the content has already been made.  Just a simple screenshot or re-posting helps ring in the new year.

Holiday inspired posts - It is important to be sensitive to your audience, but feel free to get your social media into the holiday spirit. Run a snowflake making contest. Snap a picture of a tree and have your audience decorate it and snap it back to you on Snapchat. Virtually decorate cookies. Create a simple holiday message and share it.

Reppin' from (location) - This one has been a fun one in Snapchat. Not sure how it started, but I am currently receiving snaps daily from folks wearing their school gear with the comment "Reppin' from ______ (location)". Usually from home or a specific city, no doubt these students miss their institution and still want to show their spirit. We add it to our story and it just keeps going.

How else are you engaging your audience? Comment below and together, we can get through the season together!

Achievement Unlocked - Bonus Story

We had a huge snowstorm earlier in November. My team and I capitalized and asked students to take pictures of campus and enjoying the snow with the hashtag #MySnowyWMU. Originally, we promoted that their photos would be used to create the winter cover photos for social media.  We did that with some of them, but we received so many admissions, we are able to run this #MySnowyWMU campaign from their first day off to their day back on campus. We didn't even have to go out in the cold to take these photos. 

You can follow the #MySnowyWMU campaign on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Just search the hashtag.