1 New Media Team: 2018 Q1 Social Media Report First Quarter highlights: • Social media manager hired and on-boarded, bringing New Media team staffing to two. • Successfully executed first Giving Day, which brought in more than 5,300 gifts and $1.6 million in donations to Virginia Tech Foundation funds. • After 6 months, reactions to the new brand have slowed to the occasional, off-topic reference to “bring back the old logo” from a very small group of community members; this shows brand acceptance on social media. What has improved? • Social media strategy: In addition to sharing VT News stories and campus events, the team has made it a priority to include one marketing, brand-elevating piece of campus- life content per day on the platforms. Common hashtags: #WhyVT, #MeetAHokie. #CaughtOnCampus • Strong captions with improved visuals: Unlike other higher education peers, we are putting the emphasis on writing coordinating captions to give extra context or texture to the visuals. Examples from peer, left, and Virginia Tech, right:
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New Media Team: 2018 Q1 Social Media ReportFirst Quarter highlights:
• Social media manager hired and on-boarded, bringing New Media team staffing to two.
• Successfully executed first Giving Day, which brought in more than 5,300 gifts and $1.6 million in donations to Virginia Tech Foundation funds.
• After 6 months, reactions to the new brand have slowed to the occasional, off-topic reference to “bring back the old logo” from a very small group of community members; this shows brand acceptance on social media.
What has improved?• Social media strategy: In addition to sharing VT News stories and campus events, the
team has made it a priority to include one marketing, brand-elevating piece of campus-life content per day on the platforms. Common hashtags: #WhyVT, #MeetAHokie. #CaughtOnCampus
• Strong captions with improved visuals: Unlike other higher education peers, we are putting the emphasis on writing coordinating captions to give extra context or texture to the visuals. Examples from peer, left, and Virginia Tech, right:
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• Instagram content: Regular campus events are getting a stronger look this year due to new visual producers on staff and better submitted content, resulting in more engagement. Examples from The Big Event coverage in 2017, left, and 2018, right:
Continued: What has improved?
• Use of Stories to engage younger audiences: Instagram and Snapchat’s Stories feature allows for timely announcements and event-based photo and video essays targeted toward students and young alumni. This is a growing area that the team will continue to leverage.
• Engagement and response rates: Due to having a full-time social media manager on board, the response rate to questions received via direct messages has increased. The team adheres to business-hours responses, except in the case of larger campus weekend events or urgent/critical needs. This also applies to shares of community-generated content where the team adds its own commentary to enhance social media brand goals. Examples:
• More content available: New visual producers have been hired in the past 9 months, and in 2018, they have been running their own Virginia Tech-affiliated social media accounts. This allows for them to share content from their point-of-view, and it gives the New Media team a content pool from which to pull. Over time, these auxiliary accounts will help support the overall social media brand strategy. See examples on page 4.
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General Social Media MentionsThrough our Keyhole software, we are able to track the volume of Virginia Tech conversations and general sentiment of those.
Note: Sentiment trackers are still somewhat flawed and since we rotate our trackers due to changing events, the below charts do not capture everything, but they indicate general reach during the busier months.
Sentiment and Demographics
Tracking mentions of “Virginia Tech” on Twitter and Instagram
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@ray.meese / Ray Meese@virginiatechphoto / Logan Wallace
*J. Scott Parker began his account in late January, so his account has fewer months of data than the others
@olivia_at_vt / Olivia Coleman
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Facebook
*Video metrics measurement is new to Q1 2018. Users viewed our 34 videos for ten seconds or to completion 109,602 times and the majority watched with the sound off.
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