When one thinks of independent school marketing, isn't Taylor Swift the first thing to come to mind? No? Well it should be! If school marketers pay attention to the pop star they can learn a valuable lesson in understanding and connecting with your audience to the point they become an extension of your marketing team.

Discover the transformative power of storytelling in enhancing alumni, donor, and student engagement using social media. In this session, we will dive into real digital campaign successes from The University of Alabama Culverhouse College of Business and the University of Arkansas Sam M. Walton College of Business. Participants will explore innovative methods for utilizing social media platforms as effective tools for outreach, fundraising, and more. We will emphasize adapting to current trends and developing relevant content tailored to specific social media markets. Through practical, data-driven strategies, attendees will gain insights into leveraging long-form content to unlock impactful storytelling. This approach fosters genuine connections, creating a sense of community, on social media.

Working on a small communications team may have limitations, but it can also make a big impact. In this session we will discuss organization and management strategies for small social media teams. Using examples and resources from CSU Northridge, attendees will gain tools and best practices to implement at their home institution.

Social media, the beating heart of connections with students, alumni, and donors, is the key to success. Our session immerses you in the dynamic world of social media trends, showing you how they can supercharge your institution's advancement and marketing efforts. Unleash your potential to connect, engage, and elevate your institution to new heights with confidence, joy, and a vibrant community cheering you on!

As marketers, our goal is to get the right message to the right people in the right channel to help us build connection and trust and inspire action. But, we see it every day where organizations post the same content on all their social channels. This session will help participants learn how to outline guidelines, goals and strategies for each of our social channels so that they know how to reach their audiences for best results. We will also discuss how to leverage executive accounts to achieve brand awareness and convey a sense of authentic leadership.

Engaging recent graduates is typically top of mind for many alumni engagement and annual giving teams. Social media plays a big role in helping Graduates Of the Last Decade (GOLD) alumni stay connected to their university. In this presentation, we'll look at how to leverage social media to stay in touch with GOLD alumni, how to help keep them engaged after graduation, and how to capitalize on university-wide wins to keep GOLD alumni proud of their alma mater.

University marketing and communications teams continuously face the dilemma of having too many social media accounts across campus. When there’s a social media account for every unit, team, faculty, and degree, it’s difficult to know who is sharing what, it’s challenging to manage strategy and branding, and it’s particularly difficult for students to know where to get the information they need to thrive on campus. When reflecting on the state of our social media channels within the students' portfolio at UBCO, it was clear that there were too many accounts without any oversight or strategy. We saw an opportunity to create a coordinated portfolio-wide strategy to ensure all student communications moving forward are shared in a timely, strategic, and professional way that provides student value. In the last year, we have consolidated our Instagram accounts to eight total profiles and developed a strategically aligned social media strategy implemented across the portfolio. This session will include a Case Study presentation followed by an interactive workshop to get you started with your own approach to this style of social media strategy. Takeaways from this session: 1. A blueprint for streamlining university social media communications in a current and valuable way for students. 2. A case study to support future proposals to consolidate accounts and align social media strategies at your institution 3. A list of best practices to get started on enhancing social media processes on your team 4. Lessons learned about building relationships and trust on campus to advance social media strategies

How can artificial intelligence make daily tasks your small team does more efficient? Integrating AI into your workflow benefits the frequency and quality of the content your marketing/communications team produces. Programs such as ChatGPT and Bard, as well as in-app AI tools in the Adobe Suite, Canva, and more, can play a role in every MarCom task—from writing an effective social media caption to publishing a professional podcast. Partner with your school's IT department to understand and establish guidelines for your organization’s safe use of AI. With the support of IT, maximize your use of AI and strategize to be prepared for future emerging technologies.

The paradigm of education marketing has shifted drastically in the digital age. As graduate programs aim to attract a mature, career-focused demographic, LinkedIn emerges as the optimal platform for such outreach. This report delves into the intricate dynamics of why and how LinkedIn has become an indispensable ally for graduate programs worldwide.

Reddit is often dismissed as the wild west platform. Users have quirky or obscure usernames, it's not as pretty as the big three, and it can be full of misinformation. Whether you like it or not, future and current students are on Reddit, talking and asking questions about your school. This presentation will explore how UCalgary Law uses Reddit as a social listening tool, to answer questions from future students, and to dispel misconceptions about our school in a very non-market-y way...all while using our actual name! (And the only law school in Canada to do so.)