Taking Social Media to the Next Level

[Generic title slide]

Robert Hornsby:

…to the main program, and I’m introducing Nicole Sunstrum. Nicole, take it away.

[Second slide: Columbia WeConnect Workshop]

Let’s talk about social media.


[Applause]


Nicole Sunstrum:

Is it going to magically appear?

[Third slide: Unlocking the potential of Social Media]

Bingo! Okay. Well, good morning, everybody. I want to do a quick time check. Alright.

So, I just got off a plane from Michigan. So, you know, no jet lag today, which is great. But we are going to kind of fly through this presentation cause we are starting a little bit behind where I’d originally planned, but we do want to keep this as interactive as possible, which is why Robert kind of gave you that ploy to come together. But that's fine; I’ve taught in high school classrooms. Everybody likes to sit in the back and not come up front anyways. I think that's something we don't necessarily grow out of. But you will at some point in time need to find a buddy. So, at least a couple of you are paired and partnered up.

Alright, green was forward, yes? [referring to the buttons on the projector remote control] Maybe. Let’s see. Red? Which one was it?


Unidentified attendee #1:

[Indiscernible]


Nicole:

How do you go forward?

[Fifth slide: “Social media is a tool, not a solution.”]

Oh, there we go. Must be red. No, did you say green?


Unidentified attendee #1:

[Indiscernible]


Nicole:

This is not intuitive. I apologize. Alright.

So, key point today that I really want to make sure that you understand, and probably is most ridiculous thing I ever say as a Director of Social Media, is that social media is a tool and not a solution. So I am not here today—sorry, Robert—to tell you you need to get on social media. Let’s be clear. What I'm going to tell you and talk to you about, however, is that you need social media strategy.

And actually, you know what–

[Fourth slide: Director of Social Media and Public Engagement]

–we skipped this lovely slide here.

Who the heck am I and why am I here? Maybe we should have started there. So, I am the Director of Social Media and Public Engagement from the University of Michigan. It's a role that I've had for the past five years. Prior to coming into higher education, I actually worked in state government. So, I was responsible during two administrations ago when this weird thing called Facebook became cool—getting that off the ground in state government. The first social media presence the state of Michigan actually had was a MySpace account to talk about STD awareness to teenagers! My, how far we've come! Right?

[Fifth slide: “Social media is a tool, not a solution.”]

Back to this. This is what we're going to cover today.

[Sixth slide: Strategy]

And we're going to focus on strategy because social media is just the latest iteration of the way in which we communicate with people. Right? It used to be billboards. Still is. Can’t really count it or how many people enroll in your college because of it. But we had Mad Men type advertising, we had TV commercials and Super Bowl commercials, and now we have 15 second videos or ephemeral Snapchats that we're trying to figure out. Right? How can you brand a lens so somebody can look like a dog?

We're always trying to come up with something new and different and exciting, and we want to do it in a way in which both engages the audience but actually reaches the goals of our institution or brand or organization.

[Seventh slide: “In order for social to become valuable, we must deprioritize perception and address reality.”]

And so in order to do that, I like to say we need to become, like, really valuable by deprioritizing the perception and addressing reality. So, who is it that we want to be in these spaces?

You work in higher ed; I can only assume that it's slightly similar to our environment. There's a lot of things people have to say about what they think we do every single day. Or what they think we teach, or indoctrinate students on. Or how they perceive the people that reside on our campuses or the faculty in our classrooms. And knowing these things and working here every day means that we can shape our communications and our communication strategy within a platform like social media every single day. Because it's still, for the most part, the singular place where you can instantaneously reach a global audience for free. You’re not getting that at a lot of other places.

[Eighth slide: Who is…]

So, who is Columbia? We're going to do a little brand exercise. Hopefully, you've never done this before.

[Sixth slide: Strategy]

Oops. It’s touchy today.

[Ninth slide: Columbia Twitter screenshots]

There we go.

So, you do a little research. You go online. You Google Columbia. You look at you on social properties. This is a smattering of what you receive. But I want to dig deeper.

[Tenth slide: Imagine your brand is a person]
If Columbia was a person, who would they be?

So, this is where you turn to your neighbor. I want you to talk to each other and come up with an ideal of who you think Columbia is. If you're walking down the street and you meet Columbia, what do they look like? What are they wearing? What do they say? Where are they from? Go.

[The attendees begin talking amongst themselves]

Ah, fantastic [referring to a person coming up to explain the projector remote control]. Green is forward. I love it. Thank you very much.

All right. Okay. I’m going to bring you back for just a second.

[The attendees stop talking amongst themselves]

Who came up with a really good personality, and was willing to share? Don’t make me call on somebody in the back. Alright, go ahead.


Unidentified attendee #2:

[Indiscernible]


Nicole:

“She looks like me.” Okay. Dig. Dig. Dig deeper.


[Some attendees laugh]


Unidentified attendee #3:

Basically looks like you, but [indiscernible] in the world. And [indiscernible].


Nicole:

Okay. Alright. So, world traveler.


Unidentified attendee #3:

World traveler.


Nicole:

Okay.


Unidentified attendee #3:

And [indiscernible]


Nicole:

Ah. Okay.


Unidentified attendee #3:

And well-liked.


Nicole:

Alright.


Unidentified attendee #3:

Who uses social media. [Indiscernible]


Nicole:

Sure, okay. I mean, that’s pretty accurate, actually.

Alright, who else has got something? Go ahead.



Unidentified attendee #4:

Okay, well we were [indiscernible].


Nicole:

Fantastic.


Unidentified attendee #4:

We didn’t go all the way down.


Nicole:

That’s okay.


Unidentified attendee #4:

But we came up with eclectic. [Attendee starts using a microphone.] Oh, thank you. Okay. Oops. Okay, we came up with eclectic, urban, approachable, conversant in a variety of issues (global events, fields), and well-liked.


Nicole:

Alright. Fantastic. Give me one more. Anybody who’s got something a little different.

Yes, go ahead.


Unidentified attendee #5:

We talked about how the perception of Columbia, maybe from 20 years ago, is different from now. And the way an alumni would think about Colombia would be different—more kind of urban, cool erudite older Columbia image versus the younger, sort of stressed out, post high school people-look-like-they-spent-too-much-time-inside profile. [Laughs]


Nicole:

You just described millennials.


Unidentified attendee #5:

Right. [Laughs.] But you said different. So, that’s different.


Nicole:

No, absolutely.

Do you want to take this one? Yeah, one more. Okay.


Unidentified attendee #6:

One of the things that we—outside a group of three—one of the things we came up with that the unifying force for Columbians is conflict. And not in a bad way. But no two Columbia think alike about everything. And sort of to go back to your previous slide, one way you can define a Columbian is not Michigan. They’re not going to wear the Block C on their chest the same way. Or some may wear a crown. Some may wear a lion. Some may wear a “C.” Some may wear Hermes. Some may wear whatever they think is representative of their piece of Columbia but not the entire institution.


Nicole:

That’s fascinating for me because it is cognizant of what I’ve found, or it’s reminiscent of what I found online, which is really interesting.

Yeah, we're really into our Block. [Laughs.] It’s like free branding. I just actually returned from doing a keynote in Australia a week ago, and there was a Block M in the airport; it’s everywhere.

Okay, so, keeping that in mind—what you perceive and how you feel Columbia would be when you met them. Is that the way that the outside world sees you? And so I think that's something really important to think about.

[Eleventh slide: Think of a brand you identify with or admire]

And then, I want you to think about somebody that you like. There's lots of brands doing phenomenal things on social media, and I would love to just hear for a second from a couple of you which ones you really enjoy following. Because the point here is, How do we get Columbia to be that same inspiration that people want to follow? That we don't have to poll, and say, “Please like us online. Please go look at our Facebook page. Please look at our Instagram content.” We want to be admired in these spaces because we're presenting ourselves and all of the things you just said you encompass. And you guys all said—most of you—that Columbia is well-liked. So, how do we make them well-liked online? So, tell me some brands that inspire you. Go.


Unidentified attendee #7:

I’m not inspired by brands; I’m inspired by individuals.


Nicole:

Ah, interesting.


Unidentified attendee #7:

[Indiscernible]


Nicole:

Yeah. No, please do.


Unidentified attendee #7:

University of Maine, Jacquelyn Gill. She’s a paleoecologist who’s engaging and addresses conflict.

[Now using a microphone.] I was just saying that I don’t follow brands; I follow individuals. And one is Jacquelyn Gill. She’s just an example of a paleoecologist at the University of Maine. Kind of a wonky field, but she addresses everything from gender issues in academia to the fundamental nature of why paleoclimate matters to the future climate. But it’s not the University of Maine I think of. She leads me to value the University of Maine through her individual activity online.


Nicole:

You just skipped ten slides ahead in my presentation. But that’s alright.

[Some attendees laugh.]

We can talk about ambassadors and brand influencers as well. Right? We’ve moved into this influencer culture. That Public Engagement piece of my title is just that at the University of Michigan. How do we get our faculty to be more outspoken in these areas to advocate for their research that they conduct at the university of Michigan, but also leverage their networks to really be influencers and experts in their own field.

Tell me other brands. Yeah?


Unidentified attendee #8:

I like the Monterey Bay Aquarium. They have, like, a really–


Nicole:

Yeah.


Unidentified attendee #8:

–great social media presence. First, they have lots of gifs of otters.


Nicole:

Yes, they do.


Unidentified attendee #8:

So you can’t go wrong with that. Yeah, but they also manage to work in a lot of things about conservation and wildlife and climate change and all sorts of important issues.


Nicole:

Absolutely.


Robert:

Personal favorite—Stephen Colbert, both a person and a brand.



Nicole:

Yeah. Right there. Just hollar.


Robert:

Shout it out.


Unidentified attendee #9:

[Indiscernible] but I do really like this brand called [indiscernible]. They make, like, [indiscernible]. But I like them personally because [indiscernible].


Robert:

Soylent.


Unidentified attendee #9:

[Indiscernible] of Soylent. Their Instagram is [indiscernible] different recipes [indiscernible]. Like, no shit. [Indiscernible.]


Nicole:

Absolutely. They’re building a robust community. Right? One more.


Unidentified attendee #10:

This is not related to higher ed at all.


Nicole:

That’s alright. It doesn’t have to be higher ed, for who just said that.


Unidentified attendee #10:

[Now using a microphone] I really like Beyonce and J.Lo’s Instagram. [Laughs]


Nicole:

[Nicole and audience members also laugh] You’re brave. Thank you.


Unidentified attendee #10:

It’s just specifically the Instagram accounts. They do this visual stuff that I think actually Columbia does pretty well too. It’s like these different color patterns, and Beyonce has all these cute gifs on there. I mean, you know, it’s Beyonce and J.Lo.


Nicole:

It is. But it is. But that’s alright.


Unidentified attendee #10:

They’re sort of spectacular.


Nicole:

That’s fantastic. So, the question then being, right? Even if you didn't say it out loud and you think of the brand in your mind, How do the social properties at Columbia differ, or how are they the same? And how can we take these concepts that we personally find engaging and adapt our content opportunities to look more in those directions to entice people in, in the same way.

So, everybody has said lots of different gifs. Or gifs [pronouncing it with a hard “g”]. Right? We’re going to go with gifs [pronouncing it with a hard “g”] for the rest of the presentation. But, lots of different gifs. Maybe animations or color palettes. Right? Different ways we’re representing all of our content in ways that are eye-popping or eye-catching, which is vitally important when you think about the fact that the average individual consumes at least eight hours worth of content every single day. We have to find a way to break through. Right? To make sure that they look at us without being overtly annoying or appearing to be spam. Very important.

One way that we started to do this when I came to the University of Michigan five years ago that was becoming increasingly prominent was when you look at a lot of the athletic brands or even beauty product brands that started to evolve into health, wellness, and confidence brands. Dove is always a really good one. They were really early adopters of this concept—that we're going to move beyond selling soap and start selling empowerment, confidence, and beauty. And then they did this thing where they took a bunch of moms, and they blindfolded the children and you had to find your mom just based off smell. And it made me cry. And it made a lot of other people go, “Oh gosh, I need to call my mom right now.”

And so, we can do that with social content and things that are really vitally important to our community members. Whether or not it is making them cry or making them celebrate, we can evoke emotion. And that will get you shares, which is ultimately what we want. And then we want them to click through to our website or learn more about us and everything that we're doing.

[Twelfth slide: Optimize]

So, the way in which we need to do this is through optimization of content.

[Thirteenth slide: Screenshot of a tweet from @nikkisunstrum]

Now, I did a little digging on Columbia, and it looks like maybe you've got a couple of things going on in the crisis comms area, but, you know, nothing too kind of crazy. [Laughs.] Right? We'll skip over that. But to be completely honest, being in the state of Michigan, having just Michigan in the name, I cannot tell you on a daily basis how frequently we are mistaken and confused with Michigan State University, and absolutely ridiculed for any scandals that happen at neighboring institutions.

Sexual assault awareness and things that have happened is not unique to our state. It’s throughout higher education and other industries. And so being on the forefront of that conversation, being proactive, being receptive to your audiences and understanding and knowing what they're saying has never been more vitally important. And so we need to put the tools–

[Fourteenth slide: Screenshots of a University of Michigan website]

–in place to make sure that we're guiding all forms of communication.

So, what you're seeing here is actually a website of resources that are completely available to all of you. [email protected]. We create guidelines and best practices and policies and reports so that everybody across campus is reporting on all the same things. They know what they need to be aware of. And that they have these, like, benchmarks for their strategy. That they understand when a new functionality is coming out. That we can tell them, “Here's how you set up your Giphy account. Oh, you can’t get your Giphy stickers to work? That’s because you don't have a verified account; you need to use the main university’s account. But we're more than happy to collaborate with you.” Right? We are laying the foundation for success–

[Fifteenth slide: What are your goals for success?]

–in order to achieve goals for our organization. And this is what’s really, very important and still frequently missed.

For a full year, probably about a year, after I got to Michigan, people would show up at my doorstep (and you can maybe share if this still happens to you). “Hey, Nikki. We got an event today. I need a hashtag.” Nope. Close the door.

Social media has to be at the frontend of the conversation. We have to break our own news because that’s the only way to lead with facts and not chase stories. And so whether or not it’s rolling out some large initiative, like I know you guys have done this month with lighting of your buildings. Right? I am absolutely, probably certain that there’s a whole slew of social content that came, that was released at the same time. Or maybe there was a livestream of the event. If somebody had shown up on the door at the last minute and had gone, “Yeah, hey, we’re having this thing tonight. Do you think you can help us with it?” Think of how differently that would happen.

So wherever you are in your organization, you have to advocate for knowing and associating your content with what it is the organization is trying to accomplish. Lots of people still have communications plans, but do they have social media baked into every single element? Maybe not. Hopefully so.

[Sixteenth slide: Social @ Michigan Social Health]

You also have to assess your brand health. I told you we like Block M’s. So, we—last year, for the first year—did a five-year review of socials’ impact since I came to the university. We have way too many accounts. Still, we have 1,267. This actually led– I know, right? Everybody, fall out of your chair. This is the bane of my existence.

[A few audience members laugh]

So, I’ll tell you, however, when I got there, there was over 3,000. So my role that I assumed when I came to the University of Michigan—that I was brought in for—sat vacant for thirteen months, which essentially created a wild, wild West environment. And everyone’s like, “I need Facebook; I need Pinterst; I need YouTube. I need everything.” And for the most part, no one knew who ran what. (That was a whole different issue.) So, we spent a lot of time going through strategy and best practice to assess and to get stakeholders in that really looked at social media as not a playground and more of a strategic communications vehicle. Which allowed us to do this report. So now we track month-over-month and year-over-year engagement.

We’re getting ready for the end of our fiscal year. Over the last twelve months, we targeted a 25% consolidation across campus accounts, which I’m really hoping that we’re going to reach and solidify. Because what we were able to communicate to them was that despite the fact that our accounts went up, engagement based on algorithms last year dropped across the board by 50%.

How many of you could say those same analytics? Not our numbers; please don’t say you have 1,267 accounts. But are you diving that deep? Because some of you might still be in, what I would call, a legacy system. Some of you still have social properties created by somebody that used to work at the university and you might not even have the credentials to anymore. That happens to me all the time.

[Seventeenth slide: Test and Reassess]

We need to test and reassess, just like we would anything else. Social cannot flounder; it cannot be turned over to an intern. You would not let them talk to the press, so they shouldn’t be talking to all of your stakeholders at once.

[Audience members laugh]

“Ooh, keys to the kingdom! Let’s go!”

We’ve really got to elevate the content that’s there because we want to break through that noise, and then also look at it as a driving vehicle. So that when people come to the front door of our university through social media, somebody responsible, professional, and really, really skilled is there to answer. And when you look at maybe, “Hey, what time of day works?” Right? Platforms give us these analytics. “Should we use an image or just a link? Is our bio complete? Do we have cover photos?” When you dig deep, there’s amazing things that you can find.

[Eighteenth slide: Who are your target demographics or key stakeholders?]

So, who are your target demos and stakeholders? When I was at the University of Michigan, this job was really easy. I had 10,000 constituents that I needed to talk to every single day. Everybody was in the same bucket. You come into higher education, and it is a whole new ballgame. It is, like, general community members, it’s fans that didn’t actually attend the university, alumni, young alumni, donors, students, faculty, staff. None of them want to be treated the same way, and everybody has different interests. And so you need to design and think through these content opportunities–

[Nineteenth slide: Persona - Facebook: Affectionate Aunt Amy]

–in order to appeal to all of them. So, one of our areas our Ross School of Business actually went through and created personas for the people online.

[A few audience members laugh]

And they’re pretty funny, so I brought them. If anybody’s seen Mean Girls, you know who this is. She’s, you know, a cool Mom, and she’s on Facebook. And I can absolutely affirm this because over the course of the last year, we decided, you know—cause way before Mark Zuckerberg said that the future is private, which we’ll talk later about how to trust him with privacy—we started Facebook groups because they gave us the ability to have parent/child relationships with our main page.

And we are also trying to address a safety and security issue in which Jimmy from, you know, the West side of the country would get accepted to U of M, and he’d create a Facebook group. And he’d just start approving lots of random people because he wanted to meet his new friends that are going to be on campus with him. And then by and large, because he has no ability to vet these people, someone dangerous would come into the community and harass or make threats, or say really, really vulgar, terrible things. And then they would call our president’s office because the parents would be like, “I’m not sending my kid to your campus. How dare you let this happen?” I don’t even have access to that group. Right?

So we tried to have control. So we created a parents and a students group. And Amy is absolutely in the parents group. I’ve had parents come into those groups—thank goodness it’s closed—and say, “My daughter, full name here, is really struggling to make friends. Do you have any children who would want to be my daughter’s friend?” Meanwhile, I’m like, “I feel so bad for your daughter.” They want to be there and they want to talk, and they have lots of needs and lots of questions.

And it’s an excellent opportunity to for you to engage and educate an audience because you know darn well they’re going to go into every other community that they’re in, and either say, a) This brand did a really good job of getting back to me, or b) I am absolutely livid with how they’ve treated my child, or me, or the community, or whoever else. If you can turn more people into ambassadors–

[Twentieth slide: Persona - Twitter: Dory]

–makes your job easier.

Twitter. It’s a little all over the place. You know, you never know what you’re going to get on a daily basis, and it moves at a very, very fast pace. And we’re going through these personas because it’s absolutely appropriate—thinking back to my woes of 1,267 accounts—that you understand that you don’t need to be everywhere. Right? Social media is a tool, not a solution. So picking your demographics and the platforms that meet your needs so that you can engage the proper audiences–

[Twenty-first slide: Persona - Instagram: Pretentious Pal Pat]

–or Pretentious Pal Pat. I hope he’s safe up on that ledge [referring to the photo on the slide].

[A few audience members laugh]

Institutions, organizations that don't have dynamic imagery shouldn’t be on Instagram. I get that’s where a lot of the cool kids are. Sorry. I don’t know what to do about it. Facebook created their own problems. So, you need to go pick, like, “Is there somebody I can collaborate with? Is there a need for us to hire a resource that is a photographer, videographer, an animator? How on God’s green earth do I create an Instagram Story? And how frequently do I need one? Because that’s what’s really important right now. You have to have all of those conversations behind the scenes. Apply strategy before you jump in.

[Twenty-second slide: Persona - LinkedIn: Intrepid Intern Isaac]

He can’t afford his watch [referring to the photo on the slide]. LinkedIn—that’s a dicey one. We’ve seen the best results with LinkedIn when it relates to faculty research. It has a really solid global community, and they love to—and, you know, and really fond, prominent alumni—that want to make sure they share the successes of their institution. So we put a lot less imagery there, which is always great. Good option if you don’t have a lot of that. Perhaps you’re a research-focused institution. Pick your poison. Apply it. And then create an expectation.

[Twenty-third slide: What are you trying to accomplish by communicating outside the organization?]

At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself what you’re trying to accomplish. This is where we’re going to lead into our next exercise. On any given day–

Come on. [Waves the remote control at the screen.] [Whispering] I think the batteries are dead.

[Twenty-fourth slide: Calendar of social media content]

On any given day, I can tell you not what piece of content, but what type of content is going to go out on University of Michigan’s social properties. And this is intentional. It’s because these content themes or buckets align with the overarching goals and objectives of our university—what we would consider our brand pillars. How are we discussing our academic excellence? How are we talking about our over 200-year legacy of impact on society or within the state of Michigan? How are we digging deep and making sure that we’re showcasing the arts and culture scene in the city of Ann Arbor, which is vitally important to them and to our institution?

You should have a document that looks oddly similar to this, but on your brand colors. I’d like you to take that and ask yourself these same questions. How can you create content, and what content should you be creating that meets the mission, vision, goals, and objectives of Columbia or your subsidiary institution?

It's kind of like bingo. I’m going to call out things later, and then– No, I’m just kidding.

[Twenty-fifth slide: Blank social media content calendar]


Robert:

There’s no prize.


Nicole:

Yeah. There’s no prizes.


Robert:

There’s extra pens up here if you need them.


Nicole:

Keep in mind, as well, on the left-hand side of this, your vertical, you don’t have to have every platform. Right? We happen to as main, central channels, but you can pick the ones that you have.


Robert:

Pass a pen to a friend if you need one.


Nicole:

[In a quiet voice] Excellent. [Speaking to someone out of view and referring to the remote control] Should this light be on? Should this light be on? Should the light be on? I see. Okay.

[Twenty-sixth slide: Streamlining Strengthens Communities]

Ope, there it goes.

[Twenty-fifth slide: Blank social media content calendar]

Okay. Sorry to be so picky about the clicker.


Unidentified person:

[indiscernible]


Nicole:

Nope, should be good. Yes, thank you.


Unidentified person:

[indiscernible]


Nicole:

Oh, just a couple minutes. We’ll give them a second.


Robert:

Counting down—one minute left.


Nicole:

Thank you. Excellent. Perfect. Okay. So, one of the other things that this document really comes in handy for is collaboration. As the overarching institutional accounts, we are responsible for representing every element and facet of the university. And there are expectations placed on us by the president of the university to make sure that we are talking about things like his eight presidential initiatives every single week. I solved that problem last year by hiring a content specialist just for presidential initiatives.

But in other cases, we know that we have a very, very large medical system, for example. And unlike the central accounts, they get these ridiculously cute children who are going through traumatic life circumstances, that they take these videos with, or they send in nurses in capes dressed like superheroes, and that content is really profound and impactful. So we, every Wednesday—on Wellness Wednesday—partner with our Michigan Medicine organization and our School of Public Health. And I know that Eric and Ed will get me a piece of content by Tuesday night, or sometimes Wednesday morning, that we can put up on those days.

We’ve laid a foundation that hits all of the marks across our organization, so that we can build an expectation across our platforms that will keep people coming back to look for content despite the fact that Facebook is not going to deliver it to them like they used to. It’s a workaround for algorithms. And it’s a way in which to showcase a more diverse array of things that are happening at the University of Michigan. It’s what our president calls our academic breadth and depth.

And so you all have those same things. Right? Socials at the front table, you have leadership that are writing communication strategies. You need to have that document or that strategy that says, “Alright, here’s how social media is supporting these same things.” So that at the end of the year—whether yours is fiscal or calendar—and they’re saying, “Okay, tell me what social did this year.” You can sit down, like I know Tatiana is going to do for me for presidential initiatives and say, “We posted 117 times related to poverty solutions, the biosciences, sustainability, research– [Whispering] What’s the other one? [Then, in a normal volume] Precision health. Because I know that’s what the president cares about, and I know he’s not looking at my Instagram every day. We have to solidify something that some still perceive as a very shiny environment that could be potentially seen as flippant, and not a real news source, and demonstrate the impact that we’re actually having beyond, “We got some likes or some views.”

[Twenty-sixth slide: Streamlining Strengthens Communities]

I didn’t bring these with me cause I only traveled with a backpack today, but these are my bibles of social media. What you see on the right is actually our inventory. That is all 1,267 accounts, the person responsible for them, their metrics of growth over the course of the last five years, and the ones that are targeted for consolidation. Tabbed alphabetically, cause that’s just how I operate. On the left, you have our monthly documents of what we do from a reporting standpoint.

There are a lot of crises that happen in my space. In March, we had an active shooter scare on campus. It might be the worst eighteen hours of my entire life. What made it worse was that eighteen hours after the first piece, the first tweet, went out—incorrectly stating that there was an active shooter, from our Department of Public Safety and Security—was that I was walking into a volleyball tournament with one of my daughters thinking we had everything buttoned up, and I got a “In case you missed it” notification to my phone from Twitter saying, “Active shooter: University of Michigan.” The analytics on that were 92 million people seeing that conversation over the course of eighteen hours.

And we pulled together an entire timeline that said, “From point A to point Z, here’s what’s happened. Here’s what we did to address it. Here’s how we attempted to fight algorithms. Here’s the news and media that picked it up that we directly responded to to make sure that they had the correct, factual information, and then they shared with their audiences. And then here’s what we did in the following 48 hours to address concerns with our community, because of course everyone’s notifications came at different times because the system was at capacity. And despite what we thought was a very good system in place, things went differently. That’s life.

It’s in this binder. It’s a point of reference in time so that the end of this year, I’ll probably not make another lookbook or yearbook like we did last year. It’s a lot of work. But we have that so if anybody asks or we need to adjust, we have it documented.

[Twenty-seventh slide: U-M Social Media Engagement Protocol]

And then we have this, which are our rules of engagement. Knowing everything that we know about social, knowing that we’re pushing people into this space and we’re creating great content and that people go there, you know, to say color things and they have these expectations placed on our brand, we have this document that guides the activity of both what we share and when you get to those lovely red boxes, how quickly you call Nikki. I am in lockstep at every moment with our Department of Public Affairs, and I have an embedded employee from our Department of Public Safety and Security.

Structurally, we need to make sure that all of our bases are covered at every moment. And to help address this, I built what I call a social leadership team. It’s one representative from every major school, college, or organizational unit across the University of Michigan. We have a team of fifty. I meet with all fifty of them in person every other month. And with our largest stakeholders—I meet with them in my office every other week. We are continuously addressing content opportunities to make sure that they are diverse, that they don’t—because they’re not in lockstep with Public Affairs—use words like, just “touching.” Because we were living through a scenario last year where taken out of context, which things frequently are in social media. If you called something “touching,” it could have been perceived as a different sort of issue. I know those things. It’s my responsibility to make sure that our social content is reflective of what we intend the message to be.

[Twenty-eighth slide: Social media is… The 1st place people connect.]

And we know this. Social media is the first place that people come to connect. Billions of people across the world at this point are leveraging social media to interact with each other. Whether or not it’s your grandmother sending you a game request—mine still does—or your children interacting via DM on Snapchat as mine do, or the people you follow on Twitter. This is how we communicate.

[Twenty-ninth slide: Social media is The 1st place people complain.]

We also know that it’s the first place that people complain. People have lots of things to say, and they take to Facebook to vent and rant. Being a communications professional in social media means that you need to try to predict how your content will be received. We recently did a story at the University of Michigan in which we wanted to talk about research related to climate. And we also wanted to talk about factual research related to wind turbines in the state of Michigan and communities that are either discussing investing, or have had them, and their reactions and how they’ve affected the community. We placed those organically, and also our marketing team placed them through paid. Facebook declined them. Because they said, “climate,” and because as I could have told them, they said, “wind.” For years, wind energy in the state of Michigan has been a contentious topic. And so when I went to them and said, “Just take that word out; you’ll be fine,” they were like, “Oh, really? Cool.”

It’s all about how you scope those narratives. In knowing that in social media, once you put something out there, it’s no longer yours, means that you have to give them something that you’re prepared for people to take and make into their own thing. If the end goal is sharing, we have to give them share-worthy content that has the core message in mind that we’re looking to convey.

[Thirtieth slide: Social media is The 1st place people celebrate]

It’s also the first place that people come to celebrate. And this is the easy part of our jobs. This is the best part of my year—is commencement. This is our commencement celebration there on the right. We have a few people that go to school with us.

[A few audience members laugh]

This is a Big House, like, you know the largest stadium in the entire nation.

And we also have this lovely pair of wings that were custom done for us by Kelsey Montague—I’m sure New York has at least a pair or two—that were designed with a campaign simply for engagement. And so last year my office commissioned her to come to tell the brand story. If you look at the wings closely, they have our football helmets in them. They have our Diag—our center of campus Block M, they have books for academics, and some of our prominent architecture. And it’s a place that people go, and they take a photo, and they share it with us online, which is great because we have to create new opportunities for user generated content that they don’t ask to be paid for—influencer culture, to go back to that.

But we want them to engage with us so that when they’re already there, then we can hit them with that really important content. We can tell them about wind without saying the word. We can tell them about pride, or we can tell them about sexual assault resources, or how to properly respond in an active shooter scenario. Content is not always pretty–

[Thirty-first slide: Social media is Our 1st place line of defense.]

–but it’s important because it’s our first line of defense. It’s the place that we want to make sure that we are sitting, waiting, and listening to our community. You’re monitoring your brand. You’re monitoring conversation around your brand. You’re looking to understand, perhaps, concerns of your community that you might not know about. We leverage Facebook Workplace across the university. It’s a tool that I implemented a little over a year ago, sort of as an intranet, if you’re familiar with that concept. My team uses Slack, which is an excellent tool. But as we used it for more and more file storage, I had to start paying for it, and it didn’t make sense to give it to, like, lots and lots of people. But Facebook Workplace gives us the opportunity to share communities with other internal organizations. So, we have a group that is Public Affairs, my office, and the Department of Public Safety and Security.

And any time we flag something online—going back to that rules of engagement document—I just need to be aware. We don’t necessarily want to be blindsided. And if there’s an opportunity, because we see something bubbling up, to create content to combat a false narrative, we want to make sure that we quickly do that. And because this is the tone of the presentation where you’re like, “Holy cow. We are in over our heads. This is, like, all negative and really bad.” You have to think about the ways in which you can deliver it in a way that people will go back and celebrate and share and find emotional connection to. Because they are poignant and important conversations, but we certainly don’t want to turn anyone away.

[Thirty-second slide: “Trust is earned everywhere but on the internet.”]

Because trust is earned everywhere but on the internet. And one of the funniest commercials I think I saw, which is outdated at this point, was one that had this, like, average-sized man with a very model, statue-esque sort of woman. And she’s walking around, and she’s like, “Yeah, my boyfriend’s a French model.” Everyone’s like, “Wait, what?” She’s like, “Yeah, I read it on the internet.” Or, “I met him on the internet.” Maybe not so much.

So what truths are we telling? How are we telling our story? How are we talking about the importance of research? Or public institutions—which is mine—or higher education institutions in general? Because if you talk to key national leadership, access to these dollars in a lot of circumstances is at risk. Funding in general is at risk. And so it’s imperative–

[Thirty-third slide: A Privacy-Focused Vision for Social Networking]

–that we use things like social that are so easy for us to get to to tell those really complex stories. Because we can’t reply on the platforms we choose to use to help us do it.

[Thirty-fourth slide: The beauty of working in higher education is that at its core, all our content should simply teach people something.]

And we can’t necessarily trust everyone to know how these platforms work just because they use them personally. I always love this one [referring to the Twitter screenshot on the screen]. This is not what I want my Department of Defense doing. It’s kind of like how you teach your children not to run with scissors. Like, just stay off Facebook or Twitter, right?

[A few audience members laugh]

Ugh. Can’t do it.

And the beauty of working in higher education, hands down, I posted yesterday because I happened to be hiring—that’s not a pitch—but it’s because we have access to some of the most brilliant minds in research and individual industries. People that are on our campuses for public speaking events or special events. I remember when Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg came to our campus to speak to our law school students. I was like, “This is amazing! Like, how are we going to livestream this, or how are we going to deliver this to a whole bunch of people.” And they were like, “It’s closed to the law school students.” No way. And I was able to get in, because I was like, “Hey, Director of Social Media. I need in.” And we live-tweeted it. Because those are dialogues people need to hear. Those were conversations that people could learn from that were happening behind closed doors.

[Thirty-fifth slide: Video of person in costume peering into a window and trying to catch attention]

And so we have to find those things without just going, “Look at me, look at me.” So we have a stormtrooper on campus. I don’t know if you have a stormtrooper; you should get one. But we also, you know, every once in a while I dress my interns up like Buddy the elf, and so that’s a fun way–

[Thirty-six slide: Great ‘social’ elevates the brand, educates and creates change]

–to get people to come as well. But we have these profound dialogues, unprecedented conversations with recognized experts—both internal and external. We do them on a monthly basis. They’re called U Mich Chats. They’ve now been going on for five years. And they originated because I was really, really ticked about how many people went to Twitter to tell our student athletes that they should kill themselves, drink bleach, or run out in front of a car because they lost a basketball game. That shouldn’t happen. And when you open the floodgates, and you have a two-way dialogue–

[Thirty-seventh slide: UMichChat ad for A Conversation About Digital Dating Abuse]

–people are less inclined to say those things to your face. The dialogues are not always fun, but they’re important. And they show that we care, and that we hear them, and that we are partnering with them for change.

[Thirty-eighth slide: Statewide Poverty in Michigan: A Roadmap]

They also highlight our individual communities and our initiatives in ways that are creative and perhaps not a PDF that probably not a lot of people are going to read.

[Thirty-ninth slide: Screenshots of University of Michigan Twitter]

And they celebrate the successes of our internal and external experts, of people affiliated or alumni. We’ve got James Earl Jones, guys, just saying. May the fourth be with you is always such a hit for us, right? Because we can totally bring in his voice; it’s excellent. And you have these things too. You have really prominent individuals that went here who will inspire others. You have students on campus from a wide array of backgrounds that are here for a variety of different reasons.

[Fortieth slide: More screenshots of University of Michigan Twitter]

Showcase them. Tell both sides of the story. This might be a little more important for me as a public institution, but I have taxpayers on both sides of the aisle who contribute to our university. And I need to make sure that they understand—whether they went here or are a diehard Spartan fan that lives in the upper peninsula of Michigan—why it’s important that money comes to our institution.

[Forty-first slide: People are fundamentally more aware of who shared an article than who wrote it]

People are fundamentally more aware of who shared something than who wrote it. Fake news. This is not fake news, but this is how it happened. So if you are the one sharing the content because you’re already recognized, take advantage of that opportunity and give them something that truly matters.

I think this is going to play [referring to the video on the slide]. This is one of our state strategy concepts. This is an Instagram Story that plays out that discusses work that’s happening in Flint. This might resonate with many of you, but Flint had some issues with their water.

[A few audience members laugh]

When I flew to the opposite side of the world and walked into an establishment in Bondi Beach, and the person behind the counter said to me, “Ah, from the States?”
“Yes.”
“Ohio?”
“Ew, no. [A few audience members laugh.] Michigan.”
“Ah. Detroit?”
“No, not Detroit.”
“Flint! How’s the water?”

[A few audience members laugh]

That was exactly what happened. And we have a subsidiary campus in Flint, and we have faculty researchers that worked on mapping out how to identify the lead pipelines. We have all these prominent resources that were able to go into the community to try to make a difference. And then we have a story that now has lost national attention in a lot of circumstances and a lot of people that are still struggling. But a lot of people that are encouraged and have hope and promise and passion for their community, and that’s a story we can tell. And then we can use the resources to point back.

This is one of those Michigan Medicine stories I told you about.

[Forty-second slide: Instagram storyboard]

We also have the ability to look creatively. And this is the document in your deck, that we’re not going to do the activity because we’re too short on time, but it’s an Instagram storyboard. Instagram Stories have, by far and large, become an enormous driver of traffic in our social strategy.

The University of Michigan was one the first to adopt Snapchat. It was one of the first things I did in my second month at the University of Michigan, because I knew I would never get a Snapchat in state government; it wasn’t going to happen. But it made a lot of sense on a college campus. But then they didn’t want to give us analytics anymore. They didn’t want to give us access to Snapchat Discovery Stories. They wanted to be, you know, really into those spectacles which nobody understood.

And then of course Mark, as he always does, copied everything else that’s going on, and so we got Instagram Stories. Boom. Done. I can create things in advance. You can use a storyboard to work with collaborators and say, “Hey, I’d love for you to provide a story on our network. Scope it out for me. What’s your theme? What goal does it reach?” Those are some of the categories that are on the sheet that you have. How can you look through these areas–

[Forty-third slide: Photos of community members]

Am I going the right direction? Yes.

–and showcase your community within channels with established audiences. It’s my way of getting around that, like, “I need an Instagram.” “No you don’t. I’ll let you use mine. Here’s a storyboard.”

This was a series that we did, about two years ago at this point, based on something you’re all very familiar with—Humans of New York. Something we called Wolverines of Ann Arbor. It was actually brought to me as a student project. Somebody had done it in a class scenario. She’d done six profiles, and she really wanted our help to continue it. We continued it for two years. We showcased—in the exact same way that Brandon does—a wide variety of people throughout our communities and told narratives that people identified with. And then at the culmination, which was really fantastic, our student organization group actually brought Brandon the creator of Humans of New York to campus, and we created an art gallery exhibit of all of our Wolverines of Ann Arbor.

We brought social to real life. We showed people that it has the power to change dialogues and conversations, and spark them as well.

[Forty-fourth slide: Each and every person represent should be able to see themselves in the content you share.]

Because I want every single person that views me on social media, or our accounts on social media, to see themselves in the content. And for me, that means sometimes challenging those perceptions. People love it when I say, “Merry Christmas” because the university only used to say, “Happy Holidays.” But when I say, “Ramadan Kareem,” it’s an educational opportunity. I can bear the weight of the conversation on Facebook because we have such a large audience, and because it’s important to our mission that we are diverse and inclusive, and that is reflective through our content. Take risks, but make sure that it still goes back to your brand so that you are always addressing one of those goals. You want to speak the language of your community.

This year for graduation, we outdid ourselves. We spoke with seventeen different students that spoke seventeen different languages and had them all verbally say, “Congratulations, Wolverines,” and we showed it in the Big House at our ceremony. People want to feel heard. They want to connect with like-minded individuals. And they turn to social media to do that. A university can also be–

[Forty-fifth slide: Home of the Free because of the Brave]

–their ally and their advocate.

We have a little fun.

[An audience member laughs]

We did this Game of Thrones thing [referring to the Twitter screenshot on the slide]. I didn’t watch it. It didn’t make any sense to me, but it made a lot of sense to my staff, and so I was like, “Alright, fine. Go for it.” And it did really well, considerably. And I still don’t get it, but that’s alright.

We also have one of the last ROTC units on campus, so it’s really important that we’re continuously working with them to recognize national holidays.

[Forty-sixth slide: Photos of a black man and the Barbor Scholars]

Click.

We have an enormous historical library on campus, which makes Throwback Thursday a slam dunk. You, too, have these same old black and white photos, and they play so well on Facebook. So, when you can talk about, you know, the first female that graduated from your institution, an ambassador and advocate. We happen to have an alumni chapter on the moon. It’s just, it is a thing. JFK also created the Peace Corps on the steps of one of our campus buildings. People love that historical look back. Facebook has capitalized on it with Memories. I love waking up every day and seeing how angsty I used to be online.

[A few audience members laugh]

But you can tell how you got to here, and the profound impact you had over time.

[Forty-seventh slide: Photo of a chalk drawing on University of Michigan’s campus]

Because we want people to reflect. So, as a follow-up to the wings last year, this year we did a 3D anamorphic chalk installation on the Diag during commencement, in which you saw both the effects on the climate, which are vitally important, and then also could see a reflection of yourself as you graduate and move away from the university.

[Forty-eighth slide: Three ads on posting positive content online]

This dials back to a site we launched last year called socialintegrity.umich.edu. Which is my attempt to not just talk about the importance of great content online, but the impact that we have. If we’re going to bring a bunch of people to the table and say, “You need to like us here,” it is the least I can do to educate you on how to use these tools appropriately. And so these are a smattering of marketing materials that we have that go with the site, which we’ve used across campus–

[Forty-ninth slide: More marketing material for the Social Integrity site]

–and that we’ll continue to discuss as we move into the next election cycle, which I’m sure will be delightful. Right?

Because we want to encourage civil discourse, and we want our content to be reflective of it. We want to teach people to use these valuable tools responsibly because we don’t know where they might end up, but we know that this inner connectivity is not going anywhere. And so if we take something that so many people desire—to have that voice or that megaphone to reach out—we absolutely, as experts and leaders in these spaces, need to help create a better playground for that activity to happen.

[Fiftieth slide: Platforms and priorities]

So, we’ll wrap up. On your platforms, no two posts should ever be the same. We craft content for the platform specific and the target demographic that we are trying to reach. We set a content threshold with a content calendar thematic bucket. (A lot of this is on that one pager you’re going to get, on the back.) You ask questions; you take risks; you stay in your swim lane. If it does not have a direct correlation to your organizational unit, do not go there. We see a lot of mistakes happen in social because of that. We campaign; we curate; we create.

[Fifty-first slide: Engagement is king, but growth is finite]

We reassess; we evaluate. We think like Dove. How can we move beyond just being a single product into something that is more impactful and profound for our communities? How can we have a conversation? Create a dialogue that hasn’t existed before? Get people thinking and want to share our conversations? How do we create those ambassadorships? Because for many, listening to a person is much more relevant than a brand. So, do you have a faculty member that tweets?

Do you have a president that does like I do? The president of the University of Michigan was announced the third week on my job. Things got real interesting real fast. And it was imperative to me, in order to build his personal brand, that he got online. And now students can turn to him, and community members can listen to him, as an advocate for higher education and the impact that we have and the work that we do.

We have to communicate the return. You can create a big binder if you want. Or, you can do it in a way that works for you.

[Fifty-second slide: “Will you add value or add noise?”]

And then you have to ask yourself this: Will you take this opportunity and squander it? Or will you really make a difference and add value to a very noisy space?

[Fifty-third slide: Questions?]

The end.

[The audience applauds]

Alright. We are, like, right at time, so–


Robert:

We are right at time, so we can hang out for just a little bit. And if there, like, maybe three questions–


Nicole:

I also have this thing called Twitter.


Robert:

Yes.


Nicole:

So, if you guys, you can just tweet me. Go ahead.


Unidentified attendee #11:

So your last question, Will you add value or add noise?


Nicole:

Yeah.


Unidentified attendee #11:

Can you just run the whole thing– [Attendee starts using a microphone.] Your last question about add value or add noise seemed to turn your first question, which is, What are your goals? upside down by saying, not How does this tool serve our needs?, but How do we serve this tool’s needs? And my concern about social media is that we end up getting sucked into conversations that we may lose sight of our marketing, research, other goals of communications. And how do we avoid, or how do we use the tool most effectively and maintain our focus on our goals and not just end up in dialogue with six million people.


Nicole:

Absolutely. So, I think the value proposition for me is everything that is those goals and objectives. That’s what I see value in, but we need to leverage the opportunities the platforms give us to provide content through those channels. Right? So I, for example, a couple of years ago, we did a Snapchat story on active shooter, like, demonstration. Really weird platform probably to put that in, but we needed to address students. We knew the target demographic was there, and so we worked with our law enforcement officers to run through a demo in order to do that. It went over really well. Right? So, that’s the value. The value is that we’re teaching and educating someone on how to do something really important, but I have this vehicle that I want to help my content meet those parameters, but I’m not going to change the type of content that I deliver. Does that make sense? Little bit? You can tweet me. We can talk more.

Alright. Yes sir?


Unidentified attendee #12:

I’m just seeing tremendously [indiscernible]


Nicole:

Yes.


Unidentified attendee #12:

Is that something that you’re also experiencing?


Nicole:

You know, it’s interesting. We have seen the most growth on Instagram. We’ve seen a shift in our Twitter influencer or our demographics. It’s fewer students, which is where we used to get a lot of our reach, and it’s less verified or larger property accounts that actually want to engage with us. So, Dick Costolo, the former CEO, co-founder of Twitter happens to be a Michigan alum. He used to retweet us. He doesn’t anymore. Right? So, we’re seeing people behaviorally shift on that platform, and all of our analytics are just kind of wonky because of it.

And so we’re really buckling down on, like, where we want them to share. We continue posting every single day, but we know, and that it’s perfectly okay, that some days our photo is not going to perform as well, but it’s still important information. And then the next day, maybe, I’ll give them a cute puppy in a Block M outfit, and that, of course, does really well.


Unidentified attendee #12:

A follow-up to [indiscernible].


Nicole:

Yeah.


Unidentified attendee #12:

[Indiscernible]


Nicole:

So, we have the in-platform analytics, and then also we’re currently using Sprout, just for kind of tertiary metrics. We’ve never made a large-scale investment in a tool, and it’s because of that social leadership team that I have—every platform has always wanted to charge me for, like, butts in seats and account access and quoted me in, like, six figures, and that’s just not a budget that I can sustain. Which is why we have those, like, documents that say, “Here are the things you should track, and here are the things that, you know, are more important so they can do most of them organically.

Yes?


Unidentified attendee #13:

[Indiscernible]


Nicole:

Yeah.


Unidentified attendee #13:

And I wondered if you could talk about– Oh, sorry. [Attendee starts using a microphone.] And I wondered if you could talk about that a little bit, and what kind of content is promoted there.


Nicole:

Yeah. So, if you take a look at our publicengagement.umich.edu website, our communications manager for public engagement, which is the role that I referenced that I just posted yesterday, they sit within my office. Part of their responsibility is to train and advocate for faculty to engage in a variety of ways. We have a Michigan Mind podcast, for example. We have, you know, social training and properties, and they can also get appearances on our main platforms, which is where a lot of their content now goes—is LinkedIn. Right? Research articles, or papers, or maybe a conversation-esque piece that they publish. We see them get traction in a variety of ways across other platforms.

But LinkedIn is, for the most part, where people are really nice when they still talk to each other, and sort of like, professional. Go figure. And they’ll share that content, and go, “Oh, I studied in that program.” “That looks phenomenal.” “That looks great.” Where if I post something on Facebook, people tend to, like, criticize the things, you know, the person in the video is wearing. Go figure. Or other items that really don’t dial into the core of what the research is. We also have a much larger global audience that we see come through on LinkedIn. The University of Michigan touts the world’s largest alumni base. I’ve never seen a number to support it, but they still say it. So, we connect with all of them there. They want to list that they went to the University of Michigan, and so that’s an important place for us to reach out to them that we don’t have on those other channels.


Unidentified attendee #13:

So, I understand from what you just said, that you believe–


Nicole:

Yeah.


Unidentified attendee #13:

–that typically, working with faculty to get them more social media savvy is a good way to go.


Nicole:

Absolutely. And it goes right back to the point that he made at the beginning of the presentation. Right? People want to listen to advocates and experts. It’s why when we do a news or a media press release, that CNN or whoever wants to speak in interview with a faculty member. So if they’re interested in social, we absolutely want to leverage that opportunity to get them to speak and advocate on behalf of their own work because they know it the best.


Unidentified attendee #13:

Thanks.


Nicole:

Yeah, of course. Anybody else? Yes?


Unidentified attendee #14:

Let’s say we did all of our [indiscernible] stakeholders and audience [indiscernible] growth strategy. For yours is a big target audience. [Indiscernible] Could you talk about that in [indiscernible]. I was just playing around with– [Attendee starts using a microphone] Follower growth strategy, everyone. And I’ve been playing around with– I represent Columbia Health, which is student health services for Morningside, so we have, like, very specific, “We want to reach students. We want to educate them about their health and prioritizing wellbeing, et cetera, et cetera.” How do we get students to actually follow us? Is it, like, a– We’ve been playing around with, like, Do we do paid? Or is it just build the content and they will come? Is that how you all did it?


Nicole:

So, there’s a couple of ways to look at this. From the brand central properties, this goes all the way back to what you said in the beginning: People love the Block M. It is—from a brand perception and research standpoint—one of the most recognizable marks across higher education, even comparative to other, you know, non-higher ed brands. It makes my job a little bit easier, right? And so we do create great content, and we don’t necessarily have to track those growth– We always want to see an upwards trajectory, but we’re not necessarily scraping to get to that next milestone. Right? Which is important for smaller subsidiary units. If I could ask, How many different platforms are you on?


Unidentified attendee #14:

Two.


Nicole:

Facebook? Instagram? Okay. I would assume that you have a parent organization. Like, are you a part of a larger–


Unidentified attendee #14:

No, actually we have a child [indiscernible].


Nicole:

Okay.


Unidentified attendee #14:

[Indiscernible]


Nicole:

Right. You’re not going to like what I have to say. [A few audience members laugh.] I would challenge if you need it or if you should be disseminating your content onto a larger, more established platform where there are already community members, and you can just deliver the most important messaging. And then you can focus your efforts on community outreach outside of social.

Yeah. You can totally take that however you want. I get to go back to Michigan today, so it’s not my problem.


Unidentified attendee #14:

[Indiscernible]


Nicole:

Absolutely.

Yeah, go ahead.


Unidentified attendee #15:

This is really valuable. I’m coming here from National Geographic Society where I was for a year. One of the challenges there was constantly the stress of how to be free, have scientists in the field blogging and tweeting, and how to control. Do you have a sense of how you– What’s the best way to balance the control for the brand’s sake and having people out there pushing the limits of what’s–


Nicole:

So, that’s also kind of the nice thing about leveraging faculty ambassadors or leadership ambassadors. Aside from the president’s account, we do not track weekly, monthly, and yearly analytics on anybody unless you carry a Block M. So, if you’re going to speak on behalf of the brand, and your profile image is your official signature of the university, you are responsible to adhere to the policies my office sets forth. If you are a faculty member, you have this delightful thing called academic freedom. And you know, some days you’re going to tweet really awesome, amazing things about the work that you are doing and how it’s facilitated because you work at this phenomenal university. And then the next day, you’re probably going to call us terrible people because your tenure or your contract or something is being reevaluated. And that’s okay because that’s your space. And I am not tracking it. I’m aware of it, but I’m not tracking it. But in the same token, I don’t retweet or engage with your content. And so that’s an acceptable balance, you know, that we have.

Now, if you want to do an appearance on our accounts, if you have, you know, we’ve got some really big headlines this week about Asian carp invading the Great Lakes. We went to our sustainability school and environmental school and said, “I need a faculty member.” That faculty member tweets a lot about the environment. Not something all of our stakeholders would agree with, sometimes. But I can create a content opportunity with him that’s on the main channels that’s educational and deliver it from us, and if he wants to retweet us, cool. So, that’s kind of the balancing act that we undergo.

We also choose– The nice thing—the only nice thing—about having 1,267

[The YouTube video ends]