Higher ed social media talks with Jenna Spinelle, Communications Specialist – Penn State

Jenna Spinelle, Communications Specialist at McCourtney Institute for Democracy (Penn State), is one of the 12 presenters of the 2019-2020 Higher Ed Social Media Conference.

In this 4-question interview, Jenna tells us about higher ed social media in 2020, a favorite tool, 3 higher ed social media campaigns as well as strategy and measurement.

1) Where do you think higher ed social media is heading in 2020?

I think higher ed will continue to embrace influencers in 2020. Schools that have been hesitant in the past will figure out a way to take the plunge and leverage the power of nano and micro influencers for recruitment, fundraising, and other applications.

I also think that the distance between online and offline will continue to shrink. For example, we’ll start to see more YouTubers added to speaker series lineups and more colleges hosting live podcast recordings. One data point on this — a YouTuber coming to my town this fall sold out a 600-seat theater in an hour.

2) What’s your favorite new tool for your social media work?

Repurpose.io is a great tool for sharing audio and video across platforms. I use it primarily for sharing podcast episodes on YouTube, but you can use it to post Instagram or Facebook live sessions on YouTube and create audiograms that are perfect to share on Instagram or Instagram Stories. All you have to do is set up a workflow once and then upload your content as needed; it will automatically publish from there. This eliminates time spent downloading files from one platform and manually uploading them to another.

3) What higher ed social media campaigns have recently caught your attention?

School: McDaniel College
Platform: Facebook
Lizzo in the library? Yes, please! This campaign was so much fun and generated a lot of buzz for the library online and offline. It also goes to show what can happen when you don’t take yourself so seriously all the time. They also gave out Lizzo bookmarks that were designed by a student and shared a resource for anyone to create their own.

School: Penn State
Platform: Instagram
I really enjoyed Penn State’s Love Ya Lions campaign, which started during the first home football game of the season. It’s a throwback to an old campaign from the 1970s/80s and had just the right mix of old and new. Alumni loved the nostalgia factor and current students loved the retro vibe.

School: Wayne State University
Platform: Flickr
Wayne State University used a series of photos to showcase its tagline, “Warrior Strong.” The collection, which was housed on Flickr and shared to other platforms, was a nice mix of students, faculty, and staff. I felt a connection to the people in the photos and saw tons of authenticity come through. It was a nice reminder that you don’t need a lot of gimmicks if you have compelling people.

4) What are your strategic social media goals and how do you measure against these goals?

I work at an institute for democracy, where we spend our days thinking about things like authoritarianism and political polarization. It can be pretty serious, and frankly pretty depressing, especially heading into an election year. My goal for 2020 is to find ways to have fun and not take ourselves so seriously all the time. Otherwise, I’m not sure how we’ll make it through November 😉

I would also like to dip my toe in the water of influencer marketing, particularly when it comes to promoting the podcast I produce for my institute. Depending on what survey you read, between a third and half of podcast listeners discover new shows through word of mouth and social media recommendations. Influencers offer the opportunity to do both. I’m not expecting our show to become The Daily overnight, but I will keep an eye on podcast analytics to look for an increase in downloads and keep an ear to the ground to hear what people are saying about the show online.