Meet #hesm pros to follow: Sandra Ordonez (@nycordonez) from @StJohnsU on social media success, challenges & tips

Sandra Ordonez, Assistant Director of Social Media at St. John’s University, is one of the 15 higher ed professionals who will present at the 2nd Higher Ed Social Media Conference on December 3, 2014.

In this 3-question interview, Sandra tells us about her most successful initiative with social media, her biggest challenge and shares some advice on how to cope with the 24/7 world of social media in higher education. Oh – and she also granted my request for a selfie!

1) What is the most successful social media initiative you’ve run over the past year?

One of the most successful initiatives has been the #SJURed campaign for our accepted students. For the first time, we incorporated a hashtag with our acceptance packages and were able to capture the sentiment behind being admitted to St. John’s University.

We are data-driven, but our #SJURed campaign demonstrated the importance of an emotional connection with our community. It showed us how sentiment can drive brand engagement.

2) What is the biggest challenge you face in your social media work? How do you cope with it?

The biggest challenge is to develop content that is engaging. In order to cope with this challenge, we restructure our social media strategy each semester. We revamped our Instagram plan this year and increased the number of followers by 55%.

We also look at what is trending in society and recreate our own version. For instance, we remade the First Kiss parody viral video and here’s the clip:

3) Social media work never stops. How do you maintain balance in your life & work given this constraint? Any tips, techniques or tools?

No, it does not and this might sound cheesy but when you love what you do and are passionate about your job, it’s not bad at all. It also helps to have an amazing group of administrators and Social Media Ambassadors to work with.