Is Instagram Really "Social"?

I appreciate people who are taking the time to investigate social media platforms' Terms of Service like Karine Joly, who has started a weekly "Social Media TOS Tuesday." She recently blogged about Instagram's Terms of Service (TOS) and what we can and can't do on our brands' accounts.

One of the points Karine made was that re-posting other users' content on your account violates Instagram's TOS. I've seen many colleges and universities doing this and doing it well - many ask for permission to re-post and then credit the person behind the original post, which I think is a critical piece to going this route. But this is frowned upon by Instagram because it's not the brand's original content.

This is also true on Facebook. Creating a Facebook album of your community's best Instagram photos also violates the TOS, unless you're using an API or linking directly to the person's content. For our community, students don't want us necessarily linking to their accounts. In talking with some of our students, they'd love for us to post their content, but even though their accounts are public (since we can see their content), they don't want just anyone looking at them. 

Learning all of this was a real eye-opener for me as Instagram has become a very popular tool for us and where we've had a lot of success in the last 10 months. It's made me question Instagram: Does their TOS allow us to be truly "social" on the platform?  Karine's posts leave me extremely frustrated with Instagram (not with her, of course!) and thinking undoubtedly yes because in many ways, they don't allow us to foster a community of sharing and engagement like we've been trained to do with other tools. Rather, the platform focuses on metrics such as simply "liking" photos, something I don't think means much at all..

In higher education, many social media "teams" and managers are actually one-person shows who can't be everywhere at once and not always around to grab that perfect sunset photo or events that students are capturing every day. Re-posting photos is a way to show your community the bigger picture of your brand (and crowd-sources, which often yields much better content!) and I'd think would make the content creator feel really good about what they're doing and feel even better about your institution.

I'm all about giving credit where credit is due, which is what this all comes down to - I don't care about likes or comments on our own posts, but pushing out great content that reflects who we really are -that's what social media is all about. I think linking to a person's Instagram account in the caption/comments, you're linking people back to the original content creator. Should that violate anything?

If we choose to follow Instagram's TOS, it really limits us in what we're doing for our community. If they created a re-post option where the person's work that was re-posted received all the likes and comments, then great! I actually like that better than the idea of a brand getting all the engagement for another's work. They should be the ones seeing and relishing in that. Then they'd see how valued their work is and be really proud. Our community wants that and in my fantasy social media world, I'll hope for a resolution of some kind as Instagram evolves - either in creating a re-post option or amending the TOS.

Until then, for those schools or brands who have found success in re-posting, will you continue doing so? What are you doing to stay in check with Instagram's TOS, if anything?

The Most Valuable Share

It's hard to admit this, but I'm a hoarder. 

Okay, so maybe not one in the A&E sense, but when it comes to content I've come across on social media this last year, I've been really selfish. 

As the main social media manager on campus, I get to see what prospective students, current students, faculty, staff and alumni say about us every day and oftentimes engage with those people. At the end of the day, unless I retweet or share the posts, the only people seeing these interactions are just those involved - often me and one, maybe two other people -  and a few followers. And it only exists in these social media vacuums.

So one of my goals this year is a rather simple one - share more of our awesome content, but not necessarily in terms of sharing on Facebook and Twitter; my goal is to do more sharing outside of social media.

This is something I've been thinking about since the spring after I printed out a couple of our Facebook posts about staff members and alumni that received a ton of positive, encouraging comments and physically shared the post with those staff members and alumni. These people, who wouldn't have come across these posts otherwise, got to see they were valued. It was sharing this information beyond the confines of social media platforms that generated (what I would argue to be) the most exciting and emotional kind of engagement I can provide in the work I do.

This goal was solidified during an experience I had this week. A first-year student posted an Instagram photo of a gift our Alumni Council gave him and his classmates at Matriculation. The caption thanked the Alumni Council specifically, so I shared the post with the staff liaison on campus in hopes she would share it with some members of the Council. She shared it with everyone and moments later, a Council member commented on the photo, "On behalf of the entire Alumni Council, you're most welcome." 

I'm sure I'm not the first social media manager making a commitment to doing more of this kind of sharing. I work on a small campus and in a tight-knit community so it's a little easier for me to do this. It may take some extra time, but when you're putting a smile on a staff member's face or allowing alumni who volunteer to see a student cherishing their efforts, it can only do good things for them, us and the communities we're so proud to be a part of.

These shares won't do anything to boost our EdgeRank or post reach, but I'm guessing they will be appreciated by those on the receiving end. No analytics report could ever assign a number or statistic to that.

Ensuring Value and Purpose in a College's Instagram Contest

Knowing Instagram was the most popular platform our students were using on a daily basis and getting inspiration from several colleges (most notably Elizabethtown College and Donna Talarico's work),  my student social media team and I decided it was time to do something fun on the photo-sharing platform. So in April, we hosted our university's first ever social media contest - an Instagram photo-a-day challenge.

We joined Instagram in late October. I spent the first five months listening to, learning about and educating our audience on there, so I was excited to try this. But I didn't want to do it just to do it, or to get more followers, or something else that didn't mean anything. So how could we do something fun AND have it be valuable for both our audience AND the University?

Strategy

For our audience, it was a game: post a photo every day using #SLUphotoaday that correlated to that day's theme. For my team and myself, it was strategically planned. We chose April for a few reasons:

• April is the first month in Northern New York that you  might - MIGHT - see signs of spring and not a whole lot of snow.
• Our University's birthday is April 3.
• It's a busy month on campus with Springfest Weekend, sports contests, end-of-year concerts, etc.

While these factors definitely played a role in why we chose April, the biggest thing for me was that April is a critical month in the admissions cycle. Why not encourage students to post content every day that you can feature all over the web at the same time high school students are making their college decisions?

The other part of the strategy was deciding on each day's theme. (I should note - they had the best ideas. Another reason to get students involved!). The pride our students and alumni have in this place is incredible; playing off that was going to be key to making this 'cool' and something our students would participate in.

Promotion

We started promotion just five days before April 1. We printed a 120" x 45" banner and hung it in our student center with each day's theme. We posted the contest on Instagram and Facebook. We made fliers for the residence halls. Other than that, I charged the team with sharing the news word-of-mouth.

What happened?

The next month was a whirlwind (hence the month-long delay in posting this). I could go day-by-day, but this post is already long enough. Here are some highlights:

• We had more than 135 people play (I know there were people I couldn't see playing because of private accounts) and close to 1,200 submissions.
• In the first seven days, we had over 500 submissions. On Day 3 (our university's birthday), I tallied over 100 photos posted - the most of any day.
• Our followers grew 27.3% in that one month.
• Not only did students play, but several alumni played (a few played every day!) and we even had a parent take part in the daily fun. That was a surprise, since the daily themes were really geared toward those on-campus. I was blown away at the lengths some alumni (and the parent) went to play every day! 

Why was it valuable for us?

In my opinion, I think this project was the first time our audience saw us giving them something fun to do and in return, it gave us some street credit with our students and younger alumni. While I've seen increased engagement since taking over our social media efforts in August, it's been more so on the alumni side than with our students. That has slowly changed, but April was sort of a mini social-revolution for us.

Since the beginning of the contest, students have been interacting and talking with us much more frequently. They are tagging us in their photos and posts. We are communicating and sharing together! When we've asked our audience for photos or content, I've seen a jump in the number of submissions we get. For me, it was a great way to end a year of social media growth on campus and I think set the stage for an even bigger social media 'boom' here this upcoming year.

I think it's important to point out here that while we saw an exciting jump in followers, this was not a goal for us. We didn't get 230+ new followers because we ran a contest; we earned the trust of 230+ new followers because we provided exciting and relevant content in an engaging way and encouraged others to join us in doing so.


Other Fun Points to Note

• When sharing photos on Facebook and Twitter, I saw a jump in new people playing or others playing again.
• I saw a slight increase in new followers on Admitted Student Days, most likely because students visiting saw the large poster in the student center and heard tour guides talking about the contest.
• Really thinking about the daily themes and how they could help us share St. Lawrence with others paid off incredibly for us in terms of re-purposing content. For instance, on our university's birthday, the theme was "What I love about SLU." We had more than 100 posts and shared the best in an album on Facebook later that week as it was the perfect way to capture why our audience loves us, instead of us preaching about why we're so great.
• Remember that "official" Instagram hashtag I spent a long time educating our audience on? Before April 1, less than 350 photos used the tag. By the end of the month, we were close to 700. Far more students are now using the hashtag than they were before, which means I'm finding their awesome content faster and easier (and others are, too).
• We've had several requests to do it again - so people liked it!

Why was it valuable for them?

You mean besides the prizes? We used a ton of student content we got from participants on other platforms and a number of students took to social media to express their happiness about it. By liking their photos, commenting on them and sharing them, we validated their efforts. They felt appreciated, which was great - because they were (and are).

People also enjoyed seeing how others saw St. Lawrence. Why did their friend love St. Lawrence? Where is everyone's favorite view? Our community learned more about each other in a fun way.

Again, I think because we spent the time to make sure the themes were centered around what makes SLU special and because it was done at the end of the semester, it offered our audience a chance to reflect and appreciate this place. We even heard as much from participants on the last day.

For the Next Time

Of course, this wasn't perfect. We will definitely make adjustments, but based on the number of requests I've gotten from students and departments to do something similar, we'll be doing more things like it - keeping in mind the value to us and the value for them.

Another lesson learned? The weather gods are never on your side. We chose our daily themes six weeks in advance and we picked one day to be themed "Today's Weather," hoping it would be a gloriously sunny day. What we did was jinx ourselves.

Technically, our contest had 15 winners, but I think St. Lawrence and - more importantly - our audience won.

Have questions about what we did? Insights on other successes? I'd love to hear them! Feel free to reach out to me or leave a comment.

More Ways to Use Social Media During the College Search

It's almost May 1 and deposits are rolling in at colleges across the country. The yield period has become an important part of my year even though I don't work in admissions. As our university's social media coordinator, this is a critical time in the year for me, too. I know students are watching, listening and deciding based on our posts and interactions. It's honestly one of the best parts of the gig.

That's why when I was perusing Twitter for the 127th time yesterday and came across this USA TODAY College article, "5 ways to use social media to choose a college," the social media nerd in me got excited to read it. "Am I making all of these things happen?" I thought before reading it. "Am I helping students in the ways they need to be helped?"

But by the end of the article, I found myself a little frustrated for the students who are really trying to look for ways to use social media in their college decision-making process. For me, I felt the list encouraged students to turn to social media in the eleventh hour to help them make a decision and that shouldn't be the case. While the writer made some good points about different sites to look through, here are some additional points I wish the article had mentioned.

Build Social Media into Your College Research at the Beginning
There are two points in the following sentence I want to emphasize: Students should be using social media as just one of the many tools in their arsenal during the entire college process.

I might be biased, but I'd tell prospective students to consistently check in with the colleges and universities they are interested in on social media throughout the 2+ years they are researching them. This doesn't necessarily mean you have to like a college's Facebook page or follow their Twitter account, but check in regularly to see what's going on - don't wait until April 1 when you have a month left to decide to start listening to what the college is promoting and doing on social media. Plus, if you're following along for a while, you'll be clued in to other really cool things the school is doing and might find a channel or avenue worth following before you make a decision.

Connect with Current Students
This is the first point the article makes and it's a good one, though I think it missed out on some key opportunities to mention some great ways to do this. Prospective students should be looking for ways that the colleges they are interested in are helping them connect. Just because a college hosts these things doesn't mean you're not getting an authentic view of life at that college. Painting the wrong picture for admitted students doesn't help them and it doesn't help the college.

Some great examples: I've been really impressed with how Connecticut College does this with @ConnCollegeLive, what St. Mike's does with their student blogs and Oberlin's most recent endeavor with a Google+ panel. It might take a little time and some research on websites and social media to find these types of outlets, but it's worthwhile if a student is able to make a connection.

Look for Ways to Connect with Potential Classmates
Is it important for students to get a "real" sense of campus life from current students? Of course. But it's the accepted students who will enroll and ultimately shape the next four years of the college's story who are really important. Get to know them.

By now, a lot of colleges and universities are creating class hashtags on Twitter and open, closed and private groups on Facebook. Some schools are even creating their own homegrown communities for accepted students. Once a student is accepted to a college or university, they should search for these groups and opportunities.

One thing I loved about our closed incoming group was that one of the first posts by an admitted student was a "10 fun facts about myself" and now everyone does it when they join. This happened organically and some posts have 40+ comments of students talking with each other about similar interests. This is their space to get to know each other - after all, these are the people they'll be spending the next four years with!

Ask Questions
Throughout the college search process, ask questions. Do it on social media, during your interview, during your campus tour and continue doing it until you don't have any more. If a prospective student is still trying to make a decision with 24 hours to go, they can reach out on social media or call the Admissions office and see if they can help. Don't be afraid to do this - we all want to help students make the best decision for themselves. [Side note: My best advice is to go with your gut instinct.]

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Our incoming class has seen it all from colleges and universities when it comes to marketing and social media. What resonated with them? What helped as they researched? What didn't? What was missing? I work at a small school and am hopeful when the Class of 2017 arrives in August I'll find students interested in social media who might have some thoughts on this.

My note to admitted (and future) students: If you choose a school but wasn't overly impressed with their social media presence as you researched them, try and find the social media manager on campus when you arrive and talk to them. I'd set aside hours to hear from you about your thoughts and I'm betting others would, too. We're always looking for ways to make it better, and who knows? Your efforts to reach out and offer up your insights might land you some cool opportunities on campus. I'd add you to my student social media team in a heartbeat.

Did you think something was missing from the USA TODAY College article? What's missing from mine? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

On Jellybeans: A Personal Post

I buy (a lot of) jellybeans at Easter. Some people love Cadbury Cream Eggs, others love Peeps and some just chocolate - but my soft spot is for jellybeans. If I'm being honest, it’s more like an obsession because of the lengths I go to get them. I don’t just run to the store and buy what they have in stock. Oh no, I don’t settle for just any kind - they have to be a certain kind, a special kind - and they remind me of a special woman.

Deciding to go to college in Northern New York meant I was 1,100 miles away from my home in Atlanta and that I would never be able to make it home for Easter like many of my friends could. But I had my Nana, who lived just over an hour away, who welcomed me and my sister with open arms and a huge smile each year for the holiday when our schedules allowed.

Nana was a wonderfully cheerful woman who couldn’t hide her excitement about having us there even if she tried. She loved being a host and having visitors, her house always more than ready for us to come through, even if it was for a few hours or days. No matter how long we were stopping in for, there was one thing we always knew for certain would be waiting for us - a bowl of some yummy, colorful candy on a table in the family room. 

At Easter, the bowl was filled with a certain kind of jellybeans, and they were always gone (refilled then gone, refilled then gone) by the time we left. They were the best I ever had and almost every year since then I’ve made sure to find my own bag to enjoy - even though it now requires me to hunt them down online (yes, they're worth it).

This Easter has been particularly hard for me because it’s my first without Nana, who passed away unexpectedly in October. I remember how much she cherished our visits and us spending the time catching her up on all the happenings of our college lives. For this weekend each spring, we were hers to laugh with and share stories well into the night. 

When it came to ordering the jellybeans this year, I hesitated and put it off for a while. They remind me so much of her; I thought they would only make me think of her even more often than I already do, and sometimes the pain of losing her is still too hard to fight through.  

I finally ordered them this week and they arrived on Wednesday, but I waited to open the package until today. Instead of ripping into the bag and eating them by the handful per usual, I found the prettiest glass bowl I could find in our house and I filled it to the top. I brought the bowl into the family room and set it on one of the tables by the couch - just like she would have done for us.

So tonight I settled for reliving the moments those colorful candies helped me recall a bit more clearly and I had to be okay with that. They aren’t as good this year and I know it’s because I’m missing something and someone. All I could do was eat them one by one, thinking of a story, an experience, or just a smile I miss so much. 

Want to share a bowl of my favorite jellybeans with me? You can find them here (and make sure to get the fruit flavored ones). 

Why I Invest Time in Instagram (And Why You Should, Too)

I've been responsible for our university's main social media channels for just over six months and I have had (and continue) to do a lot of listening and learning. One of the biggest lessons I've learned has been that our audience wants to know how we want them to use social media - and they're looking for us to guide them. One of the places I've been most successful in implementing this is on a smaller platform with big opportunities: Instagram.

I knew our students were using Instagram but before jumping on the platform, I wanted to look around and see what and how they were posting and figure out how we might use the platform to reach this particular audience. What I learned was:

• Their stuff wasn't terrible. In fact, a lot of what they posted was really awesome content I wish I had known existed.  (I'm sure the less awesome stuff is out there, just mostly on private accounts or not using any university-specific tags.)
• When they were trying to tag us, they used multiple hashtags: #slu, #stlawrence, #stlawrenceuniversity, #stlawu, etc. The list went on, and these were often hashtags used for a variety of other purposes, so they weren't strictly St. Lawrence.

Instagram is about more than posting really sweet filtered photos and getting a lot of likes; it's about building a community. I knew if we were going to be on the platform, we needed to find a way to create that. 

That's why when we launched our account, we created one hashtag we wanted people to use and actively started promoting it in our Instagram bio and on each of our photos. I didn't want our audience just adding the hashtags to their content; I wanted them to use it for what it's true purpose- to give people interested in St. Lawrence a feed they can follow for content collected from others, too.

I knew I couldn't just rely on people reading our bio and buying in to the hashtag; I was going to have to lay some serious groundwork if I wanted Instagram to work with and for us. I spent hours searching the hashtags they were using - liking and commenting on their (appropriate) photos. They LOVED us telling them we liked their stuff, which became evident as scores of them began following us... and they also started sharing more (and even better) content.

When They Bought In

During campus events (like this big snowfall), I actively promoted the hashtag across platforms like Twitter and Facebook, where I encouraged people to look at the hashtag feed - not our own - to see all the great things our contributors were posting, It helped that I went back into photos our account had liked, took a screenshot and posted that across all our platforms, like the one below:

When we did this, a lot of people figured out we didn't establish the hashtag just for us to follow along, but for everyone to enjoy. This specific post not only got more members of our audience to start using the hashtag on their photos, but they started browsing and some even went back through their own feeds and added the hashtag to older photos they had taken around campus. It was working! We had given our audience a little bit of help and they were really running with it.

What the "Other" Hashtags Gave Us: Prospective Student Engagement

When I was going through the hashtags our students were using, I noticed prospective students were using them when they got mail from us, visited campus or when they got accepted. Interacting with them opened up a lot of future engagement opportunities - they asked questions, followed us and sometimes went to Facebook and Twitter and followed us there, too. (Every so often they use our hashtag in later posts or add it to the one I've found and I simultaneously squeal with joy!)

Instagram is our fastest-growing platform and every minute I spend on there is giving me more information about our community and what it likes, but also what it needs from us. Instagram has illustrated how educating and guiding our audience on the ways we want them to use these platforms equals quality and meaningful engagement. 

If you've ever doubted Instagram's ROI for your college or university, I hope this shows you it can be - and is - worthwhile. What cool things are you doing on Instagram that are building your brand and resonating with your audience?

Breakin' Down Silos: A Communications/Admissions Success Story

At both conferences I attended this year (#SUNYCUAD and #heweb12), a common discussion was about the silos that exist on college campuses that keep departments from coming together for the greater good and to accomplish common goals. This past week, I witnessed the wonderfulness that can come from breaking down those silos - but even better, I saw what happens when every person in the room is allowed to be an expert at their craft.

A couple of months ago, my colleague had the idea to host a workshop with our office (communications) and the admissions office. In the last two years, the two offices had undergone significant changes in personnel, strategy and goals. While our vice presidents meet regularly and some of us meet with each other for different projects, we had not all gotten together in one room before. 

This wasn’t just going to be an hour gathering, either - she ambitiously scheduled a four-hour block of time and the vice presidents of both departments fully backed her. Admissions would bring a contingent of about 14 people, including each counselor, director, VP and a few others heavily involved in their work. Communications would bring our VP, both creative services personnel, our editor and me - the writer and social media person. In all, nearly 20 people were in the room - that’s 20 employees each giving up four hours of time, something we’re so short of this time of year anyways. It was a huge commitment by everyone.

We knew it could go one of three ways - success, getting through, and barely making it through. A success would be conversations, sharing ideas, constructive criticism and having a better understanding of each other’s roles. Anything less would be people watching the clock and waiting for the moment we would all be dismissed. 

I think heading in to the workshop, everyone had some reservations about what to expect. But four hours later, I was flat out giddy. I could have sat there for hours listening to my admissions colleagues talk to us about their road experiences, jotting down ideas for our next projects. There were a few key elements that led to “all the awesome things:”

1. Communicate the workshop’s importance. Having worked in admissions for a short time in my career, I have always felt a communications office and admissions office should work very closely and almost seamlessly together. As a content creator, I knew going in that this workshop was going to really help me shape how I write content for an audience our admissions staff knows so well. But you know what showed me how important this workshop was? Both vice presidents 1) endorsed it; 2) attended for the full four hours; 3) had their entire staffs attend; and 4) took part in every aspect of the workshop. This was critical to each department’s belief in its potential success.
2. Plan. We were lucky because my colleague has taught classes and workshops before and was comfortable leading this session. In the weeks leading up to the event, we spent a few hours developing activities that everyone in the room would find purposeful, applicable and useful. We made sure there wasn’t a way to not participate. She also arranged for cookies. (Yum.)
3. Empower. We’ve all been in meetings where someone in there is the self-appointed “most important person in the room.” While it’s important to have leaders in these types of gatherings, what was most important was that it didn’t take long for everyone to realize their opinion mattered and that everyone else was really listening to what they had to say. It only took a few minutes for people to become fully engaged in the first activity and that energy never left the room. In fact, I’d argue we all took the energy from the session and brought it to work with us the very next day.

Even five days later, I’m completely inspired and excited from our conversations. Our offices are across campus from one another but somehow after that workshop, they feel a lot closer. The next time we plan one of these (and people are already requesting for it!) it’ll be even better, which is hard to believe. We’ve each gained a greater understanding of what our colleagues across campus are doing and what we can each do to support them. The two-way street just got a whole lot wider. There are less speed bumps and speed zones. The sky ahead is bright. 

What does your office (or you) do to gain a better understanding of what your colleagues across campus are doing and what you can do to support them, and what you can do for them?