From the Nominator

The #WeMetAtTXST digital campaign was born of a story in the Texas State University alumni magazine, Hillviews. A 2013 Facebook study found that 28% of married college graduates attended the same university. Research into our own alumni base found that about 30% of our alumni were couples. Based on that premise, Hillviews set out to tell the stories of couples who met at Texas State (affectionately known as TXST). A single Facebook post soliciting stories from alumni couples received almost 300 engagements and—soon—there were many more stories than could be told in a print publication. So, for Valentine’s Day 2021, we took the stories to our digital platforms and created a multimedia #WeMetAtTXST campaign.

The main goals of the campaign were to increase our alumni engagement metrics and collect updated alumni information by asking alumni couples to fill out a form telling us their love stories, but we also hoped to create feelings of nostalgia and goodwill among our alumni base by sharing those stories on our digital channels. Stories were solicited through social media, text messaging, and email. Then, in partnership with University Marketing, we shared and promoted these stories across both the university and the Alumni Association’s digital platforms, including web, social media, and email. At the end of the campaign, we had received 306 form submissions, and posts across social media platforms received 344,327 impressions and 15,656 engagements.

From the Judges

We fell in love with the creativity and completeness of this campaign. Texas State engaged alumni through diverse use of social media as well as other tools that elevated the campaign. The Spotify playlist was a nice touch. They increased online engagement and, as an added bonus, collected updated alumni profile information.