Social media panel discussion (05.04.19)

About the event

Members of the Communications Network gathered for a panel discussion about social media, tackling themes set by Network members. 

About the panel

  • Elizabeth Somerville, Social Media Manager at the University of Bristol 
  • Andrew Campbell, Digital Communications Officer, University College London  
  • Jesse Alter, Social Media and Digital Communications Officer, Imperial College London  

Discussion points: 

Beyond Facebook, Twitter and Instagram:  What are new or underused social media channels and features?  

LinkedIn - “The most underappreciated social media platform” 

  • Works particularly well because its algorithms automatically show content to 20% of followers, whereas Facebook only automatically shows it to 2% of followers. It has emerged as Imperial’s top channel for engagement in the past year. 
  • It is the only platform that the UK shares with China – due to limited access to certain social channels within mainland China – making it an invaluable tool for communicating with Chinese and international audiences. 
  • There’s already a natural group of followers in your alumni, which leads to very good engagement – e.g. anyone who attends Imperial and puts that on LinkedIn is automatically added to your page, giving you a big follower base. 
  • It’s a business-focused platform, but don’t be afraid to try something different and use a playful tone of voice. E.g. you can harness a sense of nostalgia with your alumni community, use photos & feel-good stories. Fun content does work. (NB. You don’t have to lose your professionalism by being friendly) 
  • It does tend to more at a slower pace – so can be as low build! Imperial posts a max of two times per day. 

If you want to set up a LinkedIn page, or find out more about the audience Imperial is targeting, get in touch with Jesse Alter.  

TikTok - “The newest player on the social media scene” 

  • Jesse shared his thoughts on this platform. 
  • A video-based social media network. Users can make up to 60secs videos that often involve looping effects, or can be sped up / slowed down, with filters, special effects, and soundtracks.  
  • Demographic – 16-25 years, but actually younger average audience.  
  • Last summer – 500 million monthly active users. Began in China, then opened up in the Western market. 

Still unsure where it will go... 

  • Popular content on there is usually based around memes, and people copying the same thing (e.g. dance that is replicated), challenges (e.g. trust-fall challenge, or Platform 9 ¾).  
  • Not being used that much in the higher education sector – where would we fit? But it can be useful to get a sense of the mindset of the younger generation 

Prioritising content: How do you prioritise social media projects and create content for them? 

Andrew:  

  • Key question is: does it add value for the audience, will it keep them coming back? The priority for us is content that’s relevant to students. We’ve focused on student-generated content and experimenting with different campaigns to engage students (eg. student takeovers, treasure hunts and featured student Instagrammers). With the boring but necessary stuff, we look at how that can be made more engaging to students e.g. global citizenship takeover, and using student takeovers to bring more boring content to life.  

Elizabeth:  

  • I spend a lot of my time on analysis and reporting. We can easily see what type of content does and doesn’t do well on our channels – and it’s not always the content that you would predict. E.g. Informal tone of voice does really well on LinkedIn. It has shifted the type of content we prioritise.  
  • We overlay this knowledge with organisational priorities and refine it down to content that we can post. For example, we know that beautiful shots of campus and anything that bigs-up Bristol as a city does really well, but do those things end up getting bums on seat, eyes on research etc.? Probably not. We need to balance the popular with the important and consider the “Popular vs populist” argument. 
  • We always consider “is this the right thing to do?”, and make sure what we do relates back to overarching objectives so there is a strategic reason behind the content. 

Jesse:  

  • There are so many potential stories to tell at a Higher Education institution. The key for creating good social content is to think about the channels and their audiences, and then prioritise the projects that will resonate with those audiences. It’s getting harder and harder to get your content seen – due to algorithms, and people’s behaviour changing. 
  • Think strategically about who your audience is on a particular channel. For example, we are changing our approach to Facebook to start creating more student-focused content that is relevant to their day-to-day lives, such as holidays/awareness days, advice to students from students, Valentine’s Day plans etc. This content captures the sense of student life at Imperial – and has led to higher engagement.  
  • NB. It doesn’t always need to be quirky and funny, can also just be useful – e.g. tips on surviving exams if you’re on Ramadan. What can you say to your followers that they’ll see it, engage with it, and find it useful? 

Improving reach: What kind of content and strategies are better at encouraging interaction and engagement?  

Elizabeth:  

  • Quizzes, photos and videos are the content forms that get the best engagement on our channels.  
  • Articles about us from external publishers do really well across the board.  
  • Anything about money gets high engagement - e.g. if researchers are awarded money, foreground the amount of money.  

Jesse:  

  • It comes down to channel you are using, and the audience you are talking to. 
  • Big hitters that always do well include anything about space, drugs and plastics - topics that are popular enough that those not engaged with science will still enjoy it. 
  • And those that tap into the experience of being at Imperial and on campus 
  • Using memes and humour has been a good way to boost engagement across social channels. Eg 

Andrew:  

Using influencers: In what ways have you made use of influencers?  

Andrew:  

  • We’ve been engaging student influencers with our Instagrammer-in-Residence campaign and with student Instagram takeovers. (NB. A few security issues about getting student access to central accounts, but good to get students involved and give them some ownership). 

Elizabeth:  

  • Our academic influencers are really important due to the level of trust in their voice and their endorsement. Using them, particularly during recruitment campaigns, is very important. They use relevant hashtags and link back to our web pages, and are very effective. E.g. PG Open Day campaign: Rich’s Twitter 

Jesse:  

  • We do Instagram takeover programmes, and have an application process with an online form. There is demand from the student body to regularly plan takeovers.  
  • We are currently trialing The Access Platform trial, getting a team of social media ambassadors to take on user generated content assignments. Some very popular as ambassadors can be very popular, and tagged lots.  

 

Analytics and evaluation: Which social media stats do you gather? What do you do with those stats? 

Elizabeth:  

  • We look at engagement percentage, absolute number of quality engagements, reach and follower growth. One statistic alone is often not enough to give you actionable data. 
  • Native statistics are the most reliable. 

Andrew:  

  • Engagement is key to understanding what works well and what doesn’t (and how it can be improved) and why audiences engage with content. 
  • We also look at what competitors are doing well. 

Jesse:  

  • Engagement/engaged users metrics are always the most interesting to me. It's not necessarily about how many likes or how big the reach was - it's about of the pool of people who saw your content, how many of them chose to interact with it? And then exploring why they chose to interact with it.  
  • Important to acknowledge when things don’t work, and explore why 

Can you link social media engagement with student satisfaction wellbeing?  

Elizabeth 

  • Social media can be the gatekeeper to a lot of issues and trends within your institution, and a means to pass on queries / issues.  
  • Social can be a good way to drive offline action. Last year, we ran a wellbeing campaign and our most popular posts were drawing people’s attention to a free ice-cream and wellbeing chat. It meant lots of people attended an event physically, where they could access the information directly. 

What works at getting user-generated content / organising takeovers? 

Jesse 

  • Application forms for things like an Instagram in residence. 
  • Make it really easy for people to submit things back, and make it as relevant to their experience as possible. What is relevant and what will trigger a response to feed a wider collection of responses? 

Elizabeth 

  • Consider offline channels, asking for feedback in a non-social way so it’s less public e.g. email / phone call 

  

Social trends for 2019: In your opinion, what are the major social trends we should be taking advantage of in the year ahead?  

Andrew:  

  • Nano-influencers (ie. people/students with a decent but not huge following; eg. 100-10,000 followers who can influence and provide value for their followers). Working with lots of smaller influencers, rather than just one or two influencers – potentially more approachable. 

Jesse:  

  • Personalisation  - users want to see content that is directly relevant and personalised to them. Internet is a very crowded space, so people are tuning out and only focusing on the things that are particularly relevant to them.  
  • Humour and authentic tone of voice - no more 'brand speak' or stereotypical institutional college / academic speak, presenting ourselves as more of a human. 

Elizabeth:  

  • Groups, chats and niche communities. Greater focus on privacy overall.