Two weeks ago I saw an embarrassing social media ad for a well-known university’s online program and thought, “I know that didn’t go through the brand team; that’s from an OPM.” Days earlier, a student posted a video about that same campus’s cramped auxiliary housing. The video has more than 6 million views and 27,000 comments. It uses the university hashtag alongside #nightmare. Neither is from the brand team but they’re absolutely part of the brand.
Brands exist within the minds of consumers, not in strategy documents on your marketing website. For most marketers, “brand work” conjures thoughts of market research, color palettes, logos, value propositions, voice and tone, and promises—things you can fund and control. Yet we know in our guts that brands aren’t created; they’re perceived. While a Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) may be held accountable for a campus brand, they can’t create it or control it alone. A brand is bigger than any one person, team, or budget. Brand is everyone’s job yet no one can really be in charge.
A CMO should also be the Chief Listening Officer (CLO). The CLO collects timely data about how the brand’s stories are told, especially by those who aren’t “authorized” to tell it, in places where there’s no official brand presence. Every reference to a campus matters, no matter the source. CLOs can then put on the CMO hat and contrast the brand narrative they’ve uncovered with their intended brand strategy, and take steps to bring it into alignment. Address brand threats through structural improvement, not just defensive posturing, and capitalize on strengths by amplifying the stories they want to tell and empower others to tell them.
Everyone can help the CMO be a better CLO. Share stories that align with the brand strategy. Point out conflicts between the brand promise and current state and contribute to plans for improvement.
The CMO may be accountable for the campus brand, but no individual can control it. Brand is everyone’s job. Make sure you’re playing your part.
Liz Gross
CEO + Founder of Campus Sonar
Your Brand Is More than Flagship Accounts
by Steve App, Business Development Manager
In the second half of 2020, the median campus conversation volume was 2,654 mentions. No school saw that exact number, of course. Small campuses saw a median conversation volume around 1,000 mentions. The median volume for large campuses was more than 100,000(!) mentions.
Even if you directly manage social media on your campus, that probably feels like a lot of conversation.
You might even be saying to yourself, “I don’t remember seeing that many mentions.” And that’s because you don’t.
We’ve known this for a while now. We started tracking industry-level conversation in 2018, and in that research and every subsequent update, there’s always been more conversation about your campus than conversation from your campus.
But new research signals that conversation may be even more fragmented than previously thought.
When you think about a campus on social media, you likely think about flagship accounts. Accounts like @NotreDame, @ButlerU, or @CalPoly. These accounts almost always have the largest audiences and resources on campus. But they contribute to a surprisingly small percentage of a campus’s total conversation. In fact, early results indicate that as little as 1% of campus conversation comes from these accounts.
So where does the rest of the conversation come from? The majority comes in the form of earned conversation. Mentions by students, fans, media outlets, etc. But even within a campus, the overwhelming majority of conversation comes from what we’re calling “institutional accounts.” Accounts that represent the brand but aren’t centrally managed. Examples may include your campus’s Career and Professional Success office on Twitter, your Women’s Soccer team on Instagram, or the School of Public Health Facebook page.
Why does this matter? As marketers, our instinct is to measure metrics from the accounts we directly manage. But even for those with the biggest audiences and the most resources, that’s a small piece of a campus’s online pie. Everyone benefits from adequately capturing the entirety of online conversation. Those representing individual departments or units can understand their place within the larger ecosystem. Those more centrally structured can better understand which teams excel at staying on brand, and who may need some extra guidance. And at the individual level, you improve your standing when you communicate the true scale of social media.
But if you work in central marketing, you have a heightened responsibility to adequately capture the entirety of your campus’s online presence, for all the reasons Liz mentioned. Brand may be everyone’s job, but those centrally positioned are best positioned to capture it.
Liz and Campus Sonar partner Greg Heiberger of SDSU College of Natural Sciences are submitting a proposal to SXSW EDU and we need your help by voting for our proposal!
If you’re unfamiliar with SXSW EDU, it’s an annual event that fosters innovation and learning within the education industry. And the selection process is based on public voting. That’s you! Here’s a little more on the topic Liz and Greg want to bring to the event.
STEM Majors & Careers: What Students Tell Reddit
Does our understanding of motivators and barriers for pre-college youth interested in STEM careers align with the conversations they have online? How do students with low socioeconomic status differ from their affluent peers when they talk about their STEM education and career journeys? We’ll answer these questions with our analysis of 50,000+ social media and forum posts from 20,000+ users between 2018 and 2021. We’ll use student voices to help STEM educators and workforce developers plan for the future.
If you loved our Fundamentals of Social Media Strategy book, you’re going to love what’s next. Our new Social Strategy Fundamentals training series expands on the strategy, research, and best practices you loved in the book to include live discussion on real campus insights from guest experts.
Each episode explores core topics from the book, including a discussion session with Sonarians and guest experts who provide insights into what makes social media so nuanced and fundamental on campus.
Taken together, the episodes walk you through how to approach your work strategically and help your campus leaders see the value and impact of your social media work. The series shares best practices and guidance for new and experienced social media professionals, builds community and shared experiences, and grows your skills.
The first episode is out next week, so register now!
New Sonarians have been rolling in and this month is no exception. Agassy Rodriguez joined the Research Team as a Social Media Data Analyst. Agassy brings a wealth of social listening and higher ed experience. Learn more about what makes him excited to join the team.
Agassy Rodriguez
Social Media Data Analyst
What intrigues you the most about social listening?
The power behind online conversations. Social listening gives us an opportunity to add a critical and analytical lens to the conversations we see from audiences online. Using that information can help campuses make more informed and effective decisions that align with their missions. I’m also intrigued by the way social listening combines so many different knowledge and skill sets. I feel like I’m always learning something new whenever I run a query!
What current part of your job is your favorite?
I’m a lil’ new here and still learning, but right now it probably has to be learning new software for social listening and running queries. There’s something so satisfying about inputting terms, switching filters, and setting up rules, and then pressing submit to wait for your results to populate. I can’t quite explain it, but there’s a small rush involved there.
What are you currently streaming?
My partner and I are currently making our way through all of Grey’s Anatomy. We have a very long way to go until we catch up, but we’ve been consumed for the last few weeks. I’ve heard folks say you’ll start to feel like a doctor around season 9 or 10.
What social media platform do you use most often?
If we’re talking general use time, I’m probably on TikTok the most, but if we’re talking about which one I actually contribute the most to it would have to be Twitter. I appreciate the intersection of fun and education that both offer. Twitter is my favorite though because I appreciate hearing and learning from industry pros, friends, colleagues. However, those around me know I never shy away from a good TikTok reference.
What do you like about social media?
I enjoy that as an individual you can craft an experience (for the most part) that you want to have online. You have the power to shape your timeline to see the kind of information and content you want to see, and if you don’t know what you want, hop onto TikTok and it’ll show you. It also gives you access to the thoughts and musings of so many people from so many different places. I can’t even begin to cover how much I’ve learned from folks on social media. While accessing information is easy, now more than ever I remind myself to be critical about the information we consume online to avoid spreading misinformation. Social media also gives individuals opportunities to connect with others who may have similar identities, cultural backgrounds, and experiences, which help some feel less alone or disconnected in the world.
Upcoming Events
We hope to see you virtually this year at an upcoming event!
The HighEdWeb Annual Conference is online again for 2021. Steve and Dayana Kibilids from Western University will presentr/RecruitingOnReddit on Monday, October 4. Register now!
Social Media Strategies Summit Higher Ed | October 18–21 2021
Steve is presenting “Tapping into Student Communities and Channels for Marketing Insights” where he explores the social and digital communities where audiences most frequently engage in under-the-radar conversations about colleges and universities.
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