Erin Supinka, Assistant Director of Digital Engagement at Dartmouth College, is one of the 12 presenters of the 5th Higher Ed Social Media Conference.
In this 4-question interview, Erin tells us about managing social media demands, a learning outcome, the role of video in social media strategy and chimes in on Snapchat.
1) How do you manage the demands on your time and focus inherent to social?
In such a fast-paced and constantly changing field like social media, it can be extremely difficult to parse out our time appropriately to get everything done at the right moment. As a one-person team, I get pulled in a lot of directions (raise your hand if you know what that feels like) and need to keep track of tasks and projects carefully to ensure I stay on target.
I’ve found pen and paper paired with a project manager tool (Asana, Trello, etc.) is my go-to combination. Keep in mind that managing a successful workflow is a project, in and of itself. You need to maintain and manage them just like any other project.
Also, I find it absolutely necessary to unplug. Whether it’s an hour a day, a block of time once a week, or an entire day a few times a month, it’s important to disconnect and unwind. Set up someone to monitor the channels or skip posting that day (oh no!) to limit the number of times you check in. It’s so easy to get burnt out, especially following times of high tension (politics, crises, etc.).
Finally, I set aside blocks of times and boundaries for myself. I block off the first two hours of my day to prep content for the day or reward myself with thirty minutes of a task I really love working on in between the ones I don’t like as much. It works for me, so give it a try!
2) What is the most useful thing for your social media work you’ve learned over the past 12 months?
Excel – seriously! I spent this year building a strong foundation and understanding of how to use Excel. We use management tools with analytics built in, but doing it by hand lets me manipulate the data in a way that makes the most sense for our goals.
It can be hard to sit down and watch tutorials on Excel, but I HIGHLY recommend trying to build up your worksheet skills!
3) What role does video play in the social media strategy of your school?
Video is playing an increasingly larger and larger role for us on social media. During this year’s commencement, we really focused on translating several stories, moments, and other content into video format and saw an incredible ROI.
Our most successful video is one of our commencement videos. It required little input. We cut out a chunk of the already recorded commencement speaker address. However, the turnaround and timing turned a quick and easy video into a huge win for us.
Thanks to such a huge success during commencement, we’re really looking at each story closely to identify possible visual approaches. Whether we opt to do a video instead of a story, in addition to, or just as a complementary piece, we’re looking at each new idea and asking “how can we tell this visually?” A close contender for our most successful video came from this approach. Instead of doing a word story on the upcoming eclipse, we worked with a really wonderful and quirky professor and honed in on an angle we hadn’t seen shared yet in this video. While a written piece would have included the same information, we would have missed the whimsical moments we caught of the professor while he explained the eclipse.
4) Snapchat is still somehow controversial in higher ed. Do you think schools should invest time and resources on this platform?
With the right focus and team, Snapchat can be an incredible tool for higher ed.
One of the biggest “controversies” is the platform’s lack of tools for small businesses and teams. It’s hard to warrant the time when it requires so much manual measuring and documenting. Snapchat has continually made it difficult for “smaller” (used loosely because while a school may not be small, the resources dedicated to social can be!) brands to utilize the platform successfully. The lack of analytics that stick around longer than 24 hours, missing engagements pieces, and low-quality customer service make it a tough platform to jump on and take advantage of.
For us, Instagram Stories quickly became our go-to ephemeral content platform because of how accessible they made the platform and its features.
A day in the life of a higher ed social media pro: Erin Supinka
Are you a fan of social media takeovers by students or alums?
Erin Supinka took over Higher Ed Experts’ Instagram account for a day on November 8, 2017 as part of the Higher Ed Social Media Conference Speakers Takeovers where your higher ed social media colleagues share a day in their life.
A conference focusing on higher ed social media?
The Higher Ed Social Media Conference is a must-attend event for higher ed social media professionals and teams 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 experience.