A step-by-step guide on how Dunwoody College developed its first-ever social media strategic plan
When I wrote my first Higher Ed Marketing Memo last summer on transforming Dunwoody College’s news blog and social media, I had just taken the Social Media and Web Writing for Higher Ed certificate course and had learned a LOT. So much, in fact, that I almost didn’t know what to do with it all. But, by making some small, simple writing changes, our college saw BIG results. And, we’ve been growing ever since.
Blog improvement brought social media improvement
Over the last year, the Dunwoody College news blog has completely transformed. Our small marketing team of three began posting evergreen content, launching social media campaigns, and experimenting with story angles. We even launched and grew an Instagram account. The result was an increase in followers, reach, and engagement across all of our platforms.
And while we enjoyed reaping the rewards, it also became very apparent that we needed a strategic plan to keep our success and momentum alive.
So, this past fall, my role at Dunwoody College changed from Marketing Communications Coordinator to Content Marketing Specialist – a new position for both myself and the College. I was so excited to tackle ways to further improve our social media efforts.
The first challenge I faced was to create the College’s first-ever social media content marketing strategic plan.
Step #1: Discovering the need for a plan
Perhaps the largest driving force behind creating a plan was the realization that different audiences were following us on different platforms and were resonating with different types of content.
In fact, our influx of followers and the launch of a new platform had caused our social media channels to specialize further.
We found our Twitter following to be composed mostly of industry partners, our Instagram following mainly of prospective students and our LinkedIn following largely of alumni and donors.
We had to find a way to keep those followers engaged.
Step #2: Ask the 5W’s (and 1 H)
Perhaps it’s the former event coordinator in me, but before tackling large projects (such as developing a social media strategy for an entire college!) I always ask myself six very simple—but extremely effective—questions: who, what, where, when, why, and how.
It sounds too simple to be true, but answering these led to a major breakthrough, and before I knew it I had an incredible start to our plan.
W #1: WHO are we trying to reach?
I started with the obvious—our need for the plan from the very beginning. The who.
When we write and post content, who are we trying to reach? Who do we want to share our organization’s happenings with? Who are our followers? Who are our target audiences?
For Dunwoody, this would include: 
- Prospective students
- Current/potential employees
- Current students
- Industry
- Alumni/donors
Now, not surprisingly, each of these audiences are very different. We are trying to reach them for different reasons, they are interested in different things, and as such, each require slightly different content and a slightly different plan.
Note: For time’s sake, throughout the rest of this blog I’ll only be focusing on prospective students. But, answering the rest of these questions for each of your audiences will lead you to pretty profound answers and a strong start on your social media strategy.
W #2: What do our followers want to know?
The next question I asked myself when creating our plan was “what”. What do we accomplish by reaching these audiences? What do our followers want to know? What do we want them to know?
I think of this as the “message.” If you had to pick one over-arching, all encompassing message for your target audience (in this case prospective students) what would it be?
This is a ginormous question, but, in my mind, it ultimately comes down to your brand. What makes you different from other institutions? Why should students choose this institution over another?
At Dunwoody, we see our College as a premier private, nonprofit, technical college—the only one in the Upper Midwest. With close to a 99% placement rate each year (Full data calculations are available for review during College open hours Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT at Career Services or contact careerservices@dunwoody.edu), we pride ourselves in our ability to train students and find them jobs—even before they graduate.
It’s led to some cheeky advertising, just take 30 seconds to watch our latest Suddenly Successful Video Campaign:
It has also ultimately led a mentality that if you choose Dunwoody, “you’ll start at the top and stay at the top.”
And, that’s something we want to convey to our prospective students in each of our posts.
W #3: Why is reaching this audience important?
The next W is the “why”. Why is reaching this audience important? Why is crafting content for them a priority?
This is referred to as the “case” in our strategic plan—our reasoning behind trying to connect with our different audiences.
For Dunwoody, this is two-fold.
We want to reach prospective students so we can 1.) Change their lives for the better and 2.) Keep the Dunwoody legacy and our non-profit mission alive.
And, in order to achieve those goals we, of course, need students to be inspired and motivated enough to inquire about Dunwoody.
H #1: How do we get our message across?
Taking a quick break from the W’s, the “how” in our strategic planning phase came next. The “how” is referred to as the “plan.”
We know we need to reach this audience, we know what we want to say, and we know why it’s important—but how do we make that all happen? How do we get our message across? How do we encourage someone to take the next step?
The good new is you’ve probably already thought of this and you’re probably already doing it.
In my experience, if our goal is to help students find their best selves, we have to PROVE we can do it before we can expect anyone to click, RSVP, make a phone call, or try to learn more about us.
This is where the fun—and true content marketing—comes in, because there are so many different ways to do this.
Some of the ways we show students that Dunwoody could be the right choice for them is by:
- Sharing student success stories (Example: Tiara Hill named YCAP Leon Rankin Award recipient at year end celebration
- Writing personal stories on why students chose Dunwoody (Example: Construction Management student McBonn B Njankenji shares personal story on what led him to Dunwoody)
- Sharing photos of student’s projects (Example: Architecture students install functional ceramic art in Loring Corners)
- Talking about our placement rates and industry partnerships (Example: Dunwoody Class of 2017 graduates)
So, for some organizations, the “how” might not be so much “how can we do this?” but rather “how can we do more of this?” How can we continue to convey this message?
W #4: Where will we share this content?
The next question is the “where”. Where will we share this content? Where are the different audiences we are trying to reach?
The answer to this might require some digging.
As previewed above, over the last year we took an in-depth look at each of our social media accounts to discover what platform most of our different types of audiences use. And while there is definite cross-over, we discovered that most prospective students followed us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
This is an important step when developing your strategic plan. By discovering where most of your audiences live, you can better determine where to post the content you are crafting for them.
W #5: When do we need to be thinking about this?
The final W question is perhaps the easiest: “when.” When do we use this plan? When do we need to be thinking about our social media strategy? Well, hopefully always.
This plan is something that should be taken into consideration every time we click “post”.
We’ve learned—through some definite trial and error—that before we share anything, we should be able to explain why we are using that angle, with that media, on that platform. And if we can’t, we revisit the social media plan.
Step #3: Putting it all together
As mentioned above, in order to finish our plan, I had to ask myself each of these questions for every one of our audiences.
It took some time, but when fully mapped out, we had a full-page flow chart that clearly laid out:
- Each of our “audiences”
- Our “case” or reasoning behind wanting to reach them
- The main “message” we try to communicate in our content
- How we “plan” to do communicate that message
- The different “channels” we use to successfully reach that audience
The end result for prospective students looked like this:
But I wasn’t technically done just yet. I recommend a final step in developing your social media strategy: and that is to get people on board with it.
Step #4: Share the wealth
Getting buy-in from anyone who will be affected by your social media strategy—the rest of the marketing department, admissions, faculty—is extremely beneficial.
One way we did this was by presenting our new plan to the entire Enrollment Management team. We explained how the need for the plan came to be, what strategies we had in place, and why we think this could be a great thing for the College.
The response was overwhelmingly positive.
Staff members who had not typically been interested in social media before were asking questions and getting excited behind the project. We even noticed a rise in staff members pitching story ideas to us, recommending and organizing student interviews, and sharing our content to their platforms.
It’s a step not to be missed. A simple half hour presentation boosted our efforts and has led to some valuable teamwork – across traditional silos.
We still have a long ways to go. But, I hope understanding how our social media strategy came to be might help you create your own! And if nothing else, inspire you to be a bit more intentional with your posting on social media.
Meet the Author: Allie Swatek
Allie Swatek is the Content Marketing Specialist at Dunwoody College of Technology. She is also a graduate of Higher Ed Experts’ professional certificate program in Social Media and Web Writing for Higher Ed
Tags: Higher Ed Marketing Memos, Higher Ed News