![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
December 2015 |
Social media has expanded the reach even further with networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. For a time like graduation, they are the places for sharing stories and special moments for the graduating class and for their loved ones through photos, videos and extending congratulatory notes through special posts; for alumni, they take to social networking sites to share their fond memories and reestablish connections with the graduating class by sharing their own photo memories of their graduating ceremony. The St. Augustine Campus took a very targeted approach to leveraging social media for the 2015 ceremonies. We looked at emerging trends in social media in higher education, particularly when it comes to graduation, looking at best practices set by universities across the US and the UK and combining some of these strategies with our own. One strategy included using data in our storytelling – outlining the facts and figures associated with the graduating class and connecting this data to dynamic photos of our graduates at the ceremonies. The result of our targeted effort was the highest recorded levels of engagement on our main social pages – Facebook and Twitter, in terms of the traction for the content that we shared over the three days. High engagement said we were doing something right. At the time of writing, the organic reach of our posts on Facebook during the 2015 Graduation period (from October 22 to 24) reached a high of 64,435 Facebook users. Post reach quantifies the number of people who have seen a post from our page in their Facebook Newsfeed. Facebook engagement rate is measured in interactions. On a Facebook Page that translates into likes, comments and shares of your posts. Similarly on Twitter, over the 3-day period, our Tweets earned 50.9K impressions. Twitter impressions are described as the delivery of a post or Tweet to a Twitter user’s stream and twitter engagement is measured when a user Retweets, favorites, expands, clicks on, replies to, or follows you from a posted Tweet from your account. You can never tell just how your following will interact with content. Online, people are bolder and more impassioned with their opinions. It was interesting for us to see how our following identified with photos, videos and stories over the three days. Their comments and overall interactions were a huge part of making some of these moments stand out – particularly for our Graduation Ceremonies, which have followed the same format for most of the 55 years of our existence as a campus, it was really important for us to capture those memorable moments for our online following. Engagement By Numbers over the 3-Day PeriodTwitter
Facebook
|