College increases social media presence

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An explosion in social media traffic is keeping the Hillsdale College marketing department busy and looking forward to the future.
“Our Twitter account just broke 10,000 followers,” Social Media Coordinator Hannah Strickland said. “Our Instagram has seen the most incredible growth, though. Comparing our Instagram account to those of other colleges our size, our engagement is twice as much as any other school.”
The growth is a result of a concerted effort on the part of the marketing department to increase the college’s digital presence.
“One of the things we’re trying to communicate is that the college isn’t just an entity,” Strickland said. “There are people here.”
Director of Marketing Bill Gray said the department is still trying to figure out how to quantify the impact of social media, but that there’s much more to the college’s efforts than numbers.
“Certainly, the goal is to provide a base to energize Hillsdale College fans,” Gray said. “It’s been nothing but positive since Hannah took over.”
One of the difficulties the department faces is deciding how to present the different aspects of the college.
“For the main page, which includes social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, it’s targeted toward potential undergrads and current students,” Gray said. “The online courses and Imprimis are aimed at older audiences.”
Strickland said the dichotomy sets up a battle on how to present the college in a balanced way.
“On the one hand, you have a wonderful liberal arts school, but we also have Imprimis and all these online courses,” she said. “It’s really unique. No other college does things like that. We also want to accurately represent the students and faculty here.”
One of the goals of the social media campaign is to expose work published by students and faculty of the college.
“We’re working on getting photos and tweeting them out instantly. We also tweet the work of alums and faculty who work for newspapers and magazines — [Director of the Dow Journalism Program] John Miller, for example. We’ll also tweet WHIP students’ work,” Strickland said.
The team is also setting up a number of blogs to showcase certain groups at Hillsdale.
“We’re working on a senior blog and profiles of graduates,” Strickland said. “Jill Frasier, for example. She majored in art and English. Most people would say those are useless degrees in the real world, but she’s started her own photography company and is already booking weddings out a year and a half in advance.”
New blogs will also target the Imprimis and online course audiences.
“We’re also working on creating blogs for the online courses, so we can give people a taste of what you get when you sign up for an online course through the college,” Gray said.
According to both Gray and Strickland, the ultimate goal is to continue increasing the number of followers on the college’s social media accounts.
“Numbers are always what you’re looking for in social media,” Strickland said. “It’s a constant learning experience, because you’re trying to determine what good content is. If you just post a link, nobody’s going to read it. You have to write a blurb to go along with it.”
“Eventually, we’d love to see a million fans across all of our social media accounts,” Gray said. “I think that’s very doable. People are very passionate about Hillsdale College.”
Strickland said she has learned some surprising things while managing the college’s social media.
“One of the most interesting things I’ve learned is the effectiveness of using first and second person,” she said. “If you say, ‘We’re excited about this!’ or ‘What are you doing?’ then that makes people feel like there’s someone behind it all.”
Growth continues in the marketing department, especially in terms of staff.
“We’ve hired two new photographers to increase our photojournalism coverage,” Strickland said. “Faces of Hillsdale is already popular, but we’re going to try to include more professors.”
Gray said the college recently hired a new director of digital and social media, Brad Lowrey.
“He’ll be starting soon, and he’ll be working to expand the college’s digital presence,” Gray said.
Overall, Strickland said she has been enjoying the interaction with students, faculty, and college fans.
“It’s been huge,” she said. “It’s really cool watching people get excited about Hillsdale’s social media.”