Jessica Leontarakis, Social Media Specialist at Princeton University, is one of the 12 presenters of the 4th Higher Ed Social Media Conference.
In this 3-question interview, Jessica tells us a success story, shares the most difficult parts of the job and discusses the required skills to thrive as a higher ed social media pro.
1) What’s your best social media success story?
The best success story for Princeton social media was our “Snap as You Pack” campaign during back to school.
In years past, we have encouraged students to leverage a designated hashtag in their move-in posts, but students are no longer on Twitter or Instagram – they are on Snapchat! The campaign asked students to snap princetonu photos as they packed for school.
The top winners received a Princeton prize pack, which they picked up from the social media table at the student fair. We received an overwhelming response both online and offline.
The campaign showed students that Princeton wants to hear from them, gave Princeton great user-generated content and led into real-world connections between students and the social media team.
2) What are the 2 most difficult parts of your social media job and how do you deal with them?
The two most difficult parts of my job are event coverage and focus.
With over 8,000 students, 36 departments and various clubs and organizations, it’s challenging to cover every event, highlighting Princeton University’s vibrant campus community. Thanks to Princeton’s social media strategist Ryan Maguire, departments across the University have developed their own social media accounts in line with Princeton’s standards, allowing the main channels to share their content.
We also encourage our audiences to send content through #PrincetonU, #Princetagram as well as snaps. User generated content has been a great way to engage with our audiences as well as provide an “unfiltered” view of campus life.
With emails, texts, trending topics, breaking news, multiple channels to manage, my attention is constantly being demanded. It’s easy to go down the black hole of the internet in mere minutes and forget the task at hand.
In order to keep my focus, I write down three things on a post-it note that I must achieve that day. I place it right next to my keyboard so that my tasks at hand are within my eyesight at all times. Why three? Because I’m realistic.
3) What are the 2 most important skills to thrive as a social media pro in higher ed?
Multimedia: In order to set your institution and content apart in newsfeeds, social media professionals need to be able to share their stories leveraging multimedia. Gone are the days of links to websites – users demand an experience of photos, GIFs, videos, and livestreams.
Since social media is in the moment, it’s helpful to have basic filming and editing skills to quickly create posts and capitalize on the day’s trends. Having this skillset may also help when collaborating with your design team for large scale campaigns.
Customer Service: Social media professionals wear many hats especially customer service agent. It’s crucial for every question, comment or concern to be acknowledged as the user may be a potential student, donor, faculty member or employee.
The social media team at Princeton works very closely with various departments including admissions, facilities and public safety to ensure all inquiries are addressed.
Follow Jessica Leontarakis for a day at work on Instagram!
You’re going to love Higher Ed Experts’ #HESM Instagram Takeovers where your higher ed social media colleagues share a day in their life.
Check out Jessica’s 1-day takeover of Higher Ed Experts’ brand new Instagram account.
A conference for Higher Ed Social Media pros & teams?
The HESM conference has become a must-attend event for social media teams in higher education looking for new ideas and best practices.
Read below what a few of your higher ed colleagues who attended the past editions of the Higher Ed Social Media Conference say about the event.