Robert Bochnak, Director of Social Media at Harvard Business School Office of Alumni Relations, is one of the 12 presenters of the 4th Higher Ed Social Media Conference.
In this 3-question interview, Robert 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?
I would say our more aggressive use of Instagram. We have moved beyond just posting photos to using the platform in new and interesting ways.
This includes sharing videos featuring user- generated content to experimenting with different apps.
Alumni remember their first cold calls at #HBS: Part 2 🙂 #HBSalumlife
A video posted by @HBSAlumni (@hbsalumni) on
These approaches have helped Instagram become our top performing social media platform over the last year.
2) What are the 2 most difficult parts of your social media job and how do you deal with them?
Finding the time to do all the things I’d like to. For example, the videos I mentioned in my response above take some time to get together, but it’s difficult to do as many as I like given the limited time at my disposal.
My data collection—which is primarily a manual process—is another duty that takes a significant amount of time each day. But it is an essential part of my job, as I report my social media numbers on both a monthly and annual basis.
3) What are the 2 most important skills to thrive as a social media pro in higher ed?
First and foremost, it’s critical to have a strategy for how you’re going to gauge your effectiveness in the social media space. Whether it’s the number of new followers, clickthroughs, interactions, etc., you need to have a way to both measure AND also report on the return on investment (ROI) of your work.
Secondly, all social media professionals, in my view, need to be comfortable with failure. Social media strategies that you think are great can often fall flat. Hardly a week goes by when I don’t fail in some way (i.e., an idea I have doesn’t meet my expectations), but I’m always trying new approaches and to, as clichéd as it sounds, “fail fast” and move on to the next thing.
Follow Robert Bochnak 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 Robert’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.