Hashtags, stories, tweets, posts, DMs, mentions, tags, locations, boomerangs, content calendars, Hootsuite, strategic plans, handles, superzoom videos, graphics, Google Drive (and I’m probably missing a few). This is my life at Kent State in a nutshell.
You can read my full bio, but in short, I started at Kent State 5+ years ago as their first full-time employee focused solely on social media. Up until February 2014, our social media presence consisted of maintaining our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Foursquare accounts and it had been managed by committee. Flash forward 5 years, we now have an entire team dedicated to managing the university’s social media presence. Our team is responsible for managing the university’s social media accounts, creating content for various platforms on a daily basis and overseeing a community of more than 300 social media accounts. I think it’s safe to say that things have come a long way in the past 5 years!
When I joined the Golden Flash family in 2014, we had 59,950 total followers across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We now have 156,138 total followers across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Our follower counts continue to grow and our content continues to shift.
We reach various stakeholders through our social media accounts -- current and prospective students, parents, alumni, donors and the general community -- and we need to provide them with easily digestible content in formats they want to receive it in. Social media isn’t simply point and click -- it takes real strategy, creativity and time.
Social media continues to grow and expand each day and because of that, we’re constantly adjusting our strategies and learning how to leverage new platforms to our benefit. It’s also becoming an integral part of business structure. In many cases, a company’s social media presence is the face of their brand. And we’re also seeing that at any point, the wrong (or right) meme or tweet can greatly damage (or positively affect) a brand.
My hope for this Kent State social media blog is to not only show you all of the fun and cool stuff we’re doing through our social accounts, but also to provide some thought leadership on the changes in the digital landscape (and how we’re adjusting) and how we see social media evolving as a business tool.
Our goal is to serve our community through our social media presence and provide good, quality content. If you have questions, comments or suggestions, please share them with us! We want to hear from our community. I’m thrilled to be launching this blog and I hope you stay connected with us!
-Nicole