Other Duties As Assigned: One Sixth Social Media Coordinator
Full disclosure, I didn’t study marketing. I didn’t study advertising. I didn’t even study communications. Until I took a course on higher education social media marketing at Higher Ed Experts, I had no formal coursework or background in social media.
I studied education. I studied student development. And here’s what I know for certain: to be successful as a student affairs professional, I have to meet my students where they are.
Enter social media, stage left.
On a good day, I’m dividing my time equally, or not so equally, between campus programming, budget allocations, supervising student workers, planning orientation, training student leaders, and trying in vain to keep up with overflowing emails. That’s more or less my job description. It in no way encapsulates everything I do as a student affairs professional.
But the latest and greatest other duty as assigned is Social Media Coordinator for the Office of Student Life. How exactly can one be a social media success when, at best, social media makes up the very bottom sixth of my responsibilities?
Challenge Accepted
Dedicating one sixth of my time to social media yields one sixth of the results. I’m a part time social media coordinator for a department where my primary qualifications were my willingness to learn and my general knowledge of what Instagram is.
Obviously, this comes with some major challenges, and here are my top three:
- Time and time again.
On any given day, something’s gotta give, and on most of those days, it’s Facebook. Do I understand that my content could be better? Yes. Is there very much I can do about it? No. There just are not enough hours in the day for me to create the ideal content, the ideal images, the ideal calendar, or the ideal relationship with my audience. - Dollars and common sense.
Chances are you’re familiar with higher education budgeting woes, and you can probably imagine the difficulty in procuring funds for one sixth of my already over-extended job position. I have no ads, no promoted tweets, and no budget. At least, I didn’t at first. When I did get some budget, it wasn’t much. So I have to make do with with what I have because this isn’t our department’s top priority. It’s not even my top priority. - Back to basics.
When I took on the role of social media coordinator, one pressing question my colleagues had was “Why are there all these pound signs in the the posts?” You know #hashtags, they didn’t.
Creating good content does not come naturally or easily to people who may or may not even use social media personally, let alone professionally. To say that I started with the basics is an understatement. We’ve come a long way in just a few years, but there are miles and miles to go.
Higher Ed Social Media, A Balancing Act
So what do I do?
How do I balance the desire to successfully execute this huge, potentially overwhelming other duty as assigned?
- Set reasonable expectations.
Like any social media coordinator, I started with the goals my department wanted to accomplish with our social media, and then I prioritized. You would think that with a campus of 1100 students, reaching them would be a piece of cake (I sure did!), but having reasonable expectations and definitions of success has allowed me to accept the fact that limited time and resources means limited reach and engagement. I decide how much time I really have each week to dedicate to social media, and I stick to it. If that means that some things are not executed to perfection, or that the occasional opportunity is missed, then so be it. We’ll get ‘em next time. Maybe. - Know your resources.
This is a two-fold point because of course my institution does have a Marketing Office, with professionals and professional resources and content. Creating a relationship with that office and finding the other offices and departments on campus that are using social media successfully were the most helpful things I did as I created ours. And, there are resources out there, even free ones, that make my life as a part time social media coordinator easier: free post schedulers, image editors, and tons of helpful articles or books about social media. Google is my friend, as are Hootsuite and Canva, without whom, I certainly wouldn’t have achieved even the most minor successes. I found what works best for me, and I recommend that you do the same. - Slow and steady wins the race.
Our primary goal was to create a digital presence and make our department available to students via social media. Mission accomplished. I’m also happy to report that today my colleagues all know what a hashtag is and can even use them effectively. Progress is incremental, and while there is always room for improvement, that is true of all things, particularly in the ever changing, evolving world of higher education.
Speaking of which, my time is up, and while I’m certain I could keep going about the in’s and out’s of being one sixth of a social media coordinator, duty calls.
Meet the Author: Cortlan Waters Bartley
Cortlan Waters Bartley is the Assistant Director of Student Activities at Hanover College.
She is also a graduate of Higher Ed Experts’ professional certificate program on social media marketing for higher education.
