Day One - Wednesday 18 March 

09.00 - 09.45   Registration and refreshments  

09.45 - 10.00   Welcome from CASE and the conference chairs   

Cat Prill, Digital Content Officer, Marketing Co-ordinator, Lancaster University

Tasha Quinn, Social Media Officer, University of Glasgow

10.00 - 11.00    Opening Plenary

11.00 - 11.30      Refreshment and networking break  

11.30 - 12.30     Creating Accessible Social Media Content

Within the education sector we are held to a higher standard when it comes to producing accessible content on social media. In this session you will learn how to use the tools available within each channel to ensure your posts are easily accessed by all.

Dan Marrable, Director, 448 Studio 

12.30 - 13.30    Networking lunch  

13.30 - 14.30   Senior Leaders on Social - How to Build Trust With Academic Leaders and Generate a Community of Advocates on Social Media

The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer cites technical and academic experts as higher in credibility than CEOs and board of directors.

Alongside the 'day to day' messaging activity, how can social media practitioners highlight academic experts within their institutions whilst increasing brand profile and supporting core goals?

Alistair and Emma will present learnings from advocacy programmes within their respective institutions, from winning over influential academic stakeholders, sourcing content and generating a community of advocates on social media.

Alistair Beech, Senior Social Media Coordinator, The University of Manchester 

Emma Gilmartin, Head of Social Media, University of Glasgow

14.30 - 14.50    Refreshment and networking break  

14.50 - 15.50    Student Content Creation Panel

This panel session brings together student content managers, student content creators and showcases tools to help you plan and share. The speakers will give short presentations on one element of student content creation, be that emerging platforms, writing a compelling brief or maximising engagement and reach! Then we’ll open up the floor for questions and talk all things student content as a group.

Tom Travis, Digital Communications Officer, The University of Nottingham

Tony Sheridan, Social Media and Digital Content Officer, University of Limerick

Teresa Banos, Student Content Creator (intern), The University of Glasgow

Jennie Grimwood, Senior Social Media Officer, University of Bradford

Dave Musson, Head of Community and Content, The Access Platform (chair)



15.50 - 16.45  It Started with a Ghost – Successful Social Media Strategy on a Frighteningly Small Budget

An informative, honest and entertaining look at how a 30-second video created to mark Halloween at Edinburgh Napier University sparked a long-awaited “spiritual” journey for our small inhouse team to develop a new university-wide social media strategy.

Phil Moar, Content Officer, Edinburgh Napier University

19.00 - 21.00 Conference Dinner at Qua Italian Restaurant

Day Two - Thursday 19 March 

09.30 - 10.00   Refreshments and networking   

10.00 - 11.00    From Mundane to Magic: Using Video for Social Media Storytelling

Surrounded by some of the greatest minds in the country and enthusiastic students ready to change the world, working in a university can be an exciting place to be and finding fascinating stories to tell on social media a doddle. However, HESM professionals are also all too familiar with the drier sides of our communications duties: the complex research, HR policies, conferences and partnerships that just must be shared on social. But boredom is a state of mind and creativity is the cure! 

Tasha and Greig will reflect on how a creative approach to video content can help elevate otherwise fairly dry material from the mind-numbing and mundane to attention-grabbing, thumb-paralysing social media gold. 

The session will highlight some of challenges and barriers to video production faced by many professionals in the sector and open up discussion on how to overcome these obstacles. It will cover the benefits of mixing up your content with both planned and quick, reactive videos. 

Through discussing case studies, showcasing tools and techniques and frank reflection on some of their best (and worst!) work you’ll leave this session with practical takeaways and the inspiration to create your own engaging video content for social media.

Tasha Quinn, Social Media Officer, University of Glasgow

Greig Gallagher, Social Media Officer, University of Glasgow

11.00 - 11.30     Refreshment and networking break  

11.30 - 12.30    Plenary Session

12.30 - 13.30   Networking lunch  

13.30 - 14.30   Content Creation on a Budget

In this session, Hannah will be discussing specific ways universities can use money saving techniques to create content with impressive results. She'll also be discussing London Met Uni's social media ambassador scheme. The content created as a result of this has proved successful and helped to increase engagement on their social media channels.

Hannah Aldwinckle, Social Media Officer, London Metropolitan University

14.30 - 15.30   Podcasting power hour – a workshop about podcasts

Just about everyone seems to be starting a podcast right now, including Universities. If you’re thinking of doing the same, this session is for you! You’ll get ideas about what sort of show you could create, reasons not to start a podcast, and we’ll make and launch a podcast, right there and then!

Dave Musson, Head of Community and Content, The Access Platform

15.30 - 15.45   Refreshment and networking break  

15.45 - 16.30  How to Inspire your Academics to use Social Media

Academics are social media gold. Or at least, they have the potential to be… They have lots of exciting stories about their research, teaching and globe-trotting adventures. Their participation in social media activity can achieve institutional goals: public engagement, reputation management, student recruitment, fundraising, and more. But academics often have different priorities. They might be daunted by social media, worried about the time commitment, unsure of best practice, or even how to get started. They might not realise the value they can bring as social media influencers to enhance your brand. In this talk, Simon will offer advice on how to successfully encourage your academic colleagues to establish an identity on social media. Firstly, he will draw upon content strategy tools, such as empathy mapping, to help you better understand your academic colleagues, and how best to sell them the benefits of social media. Secondly, he will offer advice on how to address common concerns from academic colleagues to build their resilience in having social media exposure, and ensure their well-being is supported. Finally, Simon will offer an innovation showcase to provide you with inspiring examples of academic social media activity to take back to your colleagues to spark inspiration.

Simon Fairbanks, Senior Content Strategist, Pickle Jar Communications

16.45               Conference ends