Welcome to the first installation of the #UMSocial Monthly Recap! At the end of each month, our team works to assess successful activations and content implementation on a platform-by-platform basis. We hope that you are able to take our key findings and successes to better expand and improve upon your own social strategy! Here’s a quick peek at what the month of October looked like for #UMSocial:
We diversified our content in order to include updates on the arts, sciences, student life, and promote the Ford School Centennial. Athletics content continually performs well, and we saw this in the variety of Michigan Football graphics! Our #BeatState post reached 241K users and received 10.5K interactions.
Halloween also provided the perfect opportunity to tie the occasion into UMich brand messaging. We coined unique phrases relevant to the Michigan experience in order to make content interesting and consistent with our tone of voice. We encouraged fans to share their own UMich pumpkin creations for a chance to be featured on @uofmichigan’s Pinterest channel.
Photo courtesy of @camilleschrier
We also saw how successfully general seasonal (UMich Fall) content performs! To announce our new #1 Public University ranking, we selected the iconic Law Quad for the cover photo graphic. Usually, our cover photos receive anywhere from 500-2K likes depending on the content. This update reached 94K users and received 7K interactions.
We utilized this platform to promote specific college initiatives, and were active in live-tweeting various university-wide events. We partnered with LSA in order to launch the “Squest” on campus, initially promoting on Snapchat and then tweeting out content as well.
Leading up to the SchoolBoyQ concert, the promotional tweet for the event was the top-performing post of the week with close to 200 retweets and 400 favorites. We’re excited to branch out and cover different types of events, and so we’d say this was a success for our team.
We received the highest engagement on any single post since the @uofmichigan account was created! The athletics-related image worked to promote the Under the Lights III game. Unlike usually posting in the early evening, we decided to experiment and post closer to 11pm/midnight. This insight allows us to see just how active our followers are at night, even if our analytics tools suggest different times to engage.
Photo courtesy of @saramariecous
Snapchat
Our “Name the Homecoming Bagel” challenge encouraged followers to screenshot our snap, decorate and write on the bagel, and submit back to be featured. We received some very interesting names! This is a simple, yet effective way to engage with followers and reward them for being active on the account.
A partnership with LSA involved the uofmichigan Snapchat rolling out the launch of a “Squest” on campus. Snaps included how to get involved, prizes to win, and other info. about the contest. Based on the success of this initiative, we are able to see how to further incorporate cross-promotions on our Snapchat channel.
We look forward to what November holds, and we hope that you check back to see what else we have in the works! As always, #GoBlue and #StaySocial!
This post was written by Katie Szymanski, Communication and Digital Studies senior; #UMsocial editorial intern
