What happens when you focus on what the people want 

Raise your hand if you’d had to retweet or post something on a social media account that didn’t make much sense to you. [Everyone raises hand … at least I assume I’m not in this boat alone.] You probably asked yourself: “Why would we do this?” but then do it anyway, because there is little you can do.

What would actually happen if that content a university wanted/needed to post was thrown out the window — and we just posted what people wanted to see?

Weird, right? It is odd.

I know what you’re saying — this isn’t strategic. Wrong. It’s very strategic. Deciding when something isn’t successful, doesn’t fit the medium or won’t engage the audience well enough is tough. When someone brings you content for Instagram, it’s really tough to tell people no, especially if they have the best of intentions.

In turn, when you stay true to “the people,” you develop a quality of content like never before.

And, really, you begin to use social media like other people use social media. In a time when businesses and marketing firms are trying to out-clever each other, I’ve found it’s just better to be as real as possible — and this allows for that.

I once read that Instagram was the “next press release,” and I just haven’t found that to be the case. Research findings aren’t usually photogenic. Professor awards? Nah. Big donation? Probably not. The hardest thing to do would be to find a way to make these things Instagrammable … and if I didn’t have 1 million other things to do, I’d sure love to. What I’ve found is that it’s just as tough to decide that this type of content just isn’t for the medium. And in our case, it really isn’t for Instagram. Our audience is so specific, that type of content plays much, much better on Google+ or Twitter.

So often, for example, we focus on putting a video together of a smart student researching something. Is that student doing something visually appealing? Something with movement and action? If not, then why is this a video? It’s likely better suited as a photo/audio/text story. Same is the case with social media in my mind.

And do people really want to see this on Instagram anyway?

Here’s what I did:

1. I spent last summer experimenting — posting all types of photos like stuff you’d see in admissions materials, athletics photos, photos students took themselves, etc.
2. Then, I went back and analyzed how each of these photos performed by looking at which received the most likes, comments and followers after posting the photo.
3. I talked to some of our followers who most often post using the #WVU hashtag about what they’d like to see and how they use Instagram. These were students, prospective students and young alumni for the most part. Honestly, I didn’t spend a lot of time with this, but it was more so an opportunity for me to confirm what I had learned in 1 and 2.

That allowed me to learn a little about what people wanted to see more of. Then I went to work, finding that content “the people” wanted.

Based on what I learned, I did this:

1. I started posting less often — instead of once or twice each day, more like 5 times a week.
2. I started to share more photos from others, using less and less stock photography.
3. I started to post more of what people wanted to see: campus scenes/buildings; sports (specifically more all-encompassing stadium shots or celebration photos); out-of-the-ordinary reposts from others (examples from the last few months: school-themed snowmen, ornaments, logos made from leaves or sand, a student dressed up as a Power Ranger on campus)
4. I also started to like photos that fit into these categories, even if I didn’t share them. It has helped shape the type of content we expect to see about WVU.

Outcomes:

Posts that our followers want to see have a much bigger impact now when we post. Nearly 20 percent, on average, of our followers like our content, which is much better than an average Instagram account (about 4 percent).

Our statistics in likes, comments and followers-by-month have increased each month since November, when I started posting what “the people” wanted.

Sure, I have to post stuff I’d rather not every now and then. That’s life at a university. Yet, it’s clear that this content isn’t appreciated as much and thus even more of a reminder of how successful other posts have been.

This was an experiment — and I know there are few opportunities to do something like this when on the daily social media grind. That’s why I wanted to write about it, because it happens very rarely. Based on the results, it was well worth my time.

PS: Follow us on Instagram at http://instagram.com/westvirginiau.

Instagram — what “we” want vs. what “they” want was originally published in Media inspiration on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The next steps to a finished product

I did some math, and from the time a student enters their dorms at WVU to the time they walk across the stage, they’re in college for 24,024 hours - enough time to become an expert according to Mr. Gladwell.

It also got us thinking, what, in those 24,000 hours, did a student do? Where did they spend most of their time? What was the most significant moment of time during their college careers?

If you think back to your time in college (or even high school), you spent your time somewhere, whether it was in the library, at the bar or in your apartment. For me, it was at the WVU student newspaper, The Daily Athenaeum. I spent more than 50 hours per week there over the last two years of my undergrad career. I made life-long friends there. I gained experience there that allowed me to get the job that I have today, as well. It was a time I will never forget. I know there are other stories out there, too.

I set out to find some of those stories as part of our “Meet the Graduates” series, and after some searching, seven students were chosen. Once approved, our group set off for interviews, photos, etc.

We spoke with a nursing student who nearly died in a car wreck and failed out of school due to nerves yet found a way to make it through.

We talked to an international student who always felt at home at WVU despite never stepping foot on campus but a few days before classes started his freshman year.

We interviewed so many interesting students with powerful success stories.

Rarely do we get the chance to work with such freedom on a project like this, but this was different. There wasn’t an approved list of questions or a defined definition by anyone outside of our working group. That made for some magic.

We interviewed each person for at least an hour, so they could tell us their story. Then, our multimedia specialists spent the day with each of them for photos.

This is what it turned out to be: http://wvutoday.wvu.edu/features/24000.

Part 2: Developing a theme was originally published in Media inspiration on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Concept developing Commencement 2013 at WVU

For the past two years, I’ve been able to work closely on West Virginia University’s Commencement coverage. It’s the most fun I have all year, not only because I get to write some interesting stories on graduates, but because I get to spend time thinking creatively.

This year, a co-worker Morgan Copeland and I were tasked with coming up with a theme for our graduation coverage. Last year, we focused on “memories” - a key point around any graduation ceremony, as these grads look back at their time in college and look toward the future at the same time.

We wanted to do something different. While that was a success, neither of us find fun in cookie-cutter situations.

So, we sat in a room for two days and talked. We watched clips from Comedy Central clips, wrote on our dry erase wall in our “war room” in the office and just threw out ideas - some that sucks; others that had potential.

On that second day, I drove to work listening to a CD of an artist that I was introduced to by a good friend of mine last summer. At that point, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis wasn’t a big deal. Nobody thought thrift shopping was cool, and when people said, alright, OK, alright, OK over and over again, they’d get yelled at for not paying attention. Well, on that album, there’s a song called Ten Thousand Hours. It goes into the “Ten Thousand Hour Rule” from Malcolm Gladwell. If you don’t know about it, it basically says that it takes 10,000 hours to perfect something.

I got to work with that song in my head, and when Morgan and I sat down to concept develop this Commencement plan, it came up. It went something like …

“Do you know that 10,000-hour rule?”

“Yea?”

“I wonder how long a person is in college. It has to be longer than 10,000 hours.”

And away we went.

Part 1: Developing a theme was originally published in Media inspiration on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How random inspiration turned into a successful marketing tool

If you’re on Instagram, I’m sure you’ve seen someone re-post a monthly challenge graphic. It’s amazing how many people will post a photo based on the theme of the day. It could be the worst - or most random - theme, but people still post.

That got me thinking. Would a much more specific audience participate in an idea like this - specifically targeted toward West Virginia University?

The answer, which I’ll get to in more detail later, is yes.

Our Instagram account, @westvirginiau (insert shameless plea to follow it) had a little more than 2,000 followers at the start, so the audience we were trying to reach wasn’t massive compared to the University, which has more than 30,000 students. It was a test if there ever was one. And if there’s anything I believe more about social media, it’s that you try it, and if it fails you just don’t do it again - but you always try it.

We always do a large campaign for Commencement each year, and I wanted to try something new with Instagram. It’s a platform used by many of our students, and it’s a big opportunity to reach potential students, too.

So, inspired by those monthly theme posts, I created one of my own. We called it the #wvugrad Instagram challenge.

Here’s how it went: On the first day, I posted a schedule with each day’s theme. Over a span of two weeks, I posted a photo corresponding to the day’s theme in the morning to help our followers remember, and then in the afternoon I posted the winner (and some other photos we liked, too).

In total, we received more than 1,000 photos. We gained more than 500 followers over that two-week span. The hashtag on Twitter actually was trending for 15 hours in Pittsburgh (of all places), too,during Commencement weekend with the help of the Instagram posts and re-posts on Twitter.

It was a much more successful campaign than I ever imagined it would be.

The lesson I learned is simple (and perhaps not that surprising): People have photos stashed on their phones of just about everything, so take advantage of that.

If you’re a social media marketer at a university, and you’re not using Instagram, what are you waiting for? This is a great opportunity for follower submissions and engagement, and it’s worth the little time it takes to run an account.