Social Media and Your Higher Ed Campaign PRESENTED BY SHANNON RIFFE

Objectives

• PLAN your social media strategy to launch a fundraising campaign.

• Examples of how to EXECUTE that strategy

• University of Michigan campaign kickoff

• The challenges of executing a centralized online strategy within a large,

decentralized organization.

• TRACK your results to measure success.

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About Me

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About Me

• Birmingham, AL > … > Ann Arbor, MI

• University of Michigan Office of University Development

• Online Marketing Strategist

• Assistant Director of Marketing, Online Engagement

• Associate Director of Marketing, Online Engagement

• Before joining U-M in 2011

• Ann Arbor District Library

• Fluency Media

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About Me

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About the University of Michigan

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About U-M

• Michigan is a very large, de-centralized institution

• 60,000 students & 44,000 faculty and staff across three campuses.

• Ann Arbor

• Dearborn

• Flint

• The U-M Office of University Development (OUD) serves

• 19 Schools/Colleges

• 29 Non-degree Granting Units

• 3 Campuses

• 20,000 unique funds, 5,000 of which are online

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About U-M

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Fundraising Campaigns at U-M

• Since 1946, U-M has had 5 fundraising campaigns.

• The last campaign was the Michigan Difference

• Ended in 2008

• Raised $3.2B

• Victors for Michigan

• Kickoff: November 8, 2013 ; Goal: $4 Billion

• Priorities:

• Student Support

• Engaged Learning

• Bold Ideas

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Fundraising Campaigns at U-M

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Plan

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Social Media in 2008

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Founded: 2004 8/2008: 100 Million Today: 1.3 Billion

Founded: 2006 12/2008: 4 - 5 Million Today: 271 Million

Founded: 2005 2008: 258 Million Today: 1 Billion+

Launched: 2011

Launched: 2010

Launched: 2010

Social Media in 2013

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Collaboration is key to a

successful social media strategy

at a decentralized institution!

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Tweet this now

Goals

• Raise awareness about the campaign

• Raise awareness about the campaign kickoff events

• Create content that would be memorable, impactful, sharable

• Demonstrate the impact and importance of philanthropy at U-M

= 30 Day Countdown

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Why a Countdown?

• Build momentum

• Consistent, fresh content

• 30 days

• Ambitious but doable

• Enough time to feature a wide variety of stories

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Demonstrate Impact

• Highlight the stories of individuals who have been impacted

• Take the focus off of the institution and shine a light onto the

• Students

• Undergrad

• Graduate

• Student-Athlete

• International

• Faculty

• Staff

• Patients

• Alums

• Donors

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Demonstrate Impact Visually

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Graphic Inspiration

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Creating a Graphic Template

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Creating a Graphic Template

• Look to outside sources for inspiration.

• Consider what has been successful for you previously, as well as best practices for

social media (e.g. images of people’s faces).

• Work with a graphic designer to create initial template.

• Once the template is done, you/student can modify and update it yourself.

• Used Photoshop via “Virtual Sites.” If Photoshop if not available, check out

www.Canva.com.

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Execute

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Gathering Stories

• First impact story in countdown planned for 10/8.

• Began first emails in July to seek stories.

• Do not underestimate the importance of and the time it takes to get approvals.

• Approval by the subject

• Approval by the development/communications contact at the unit

• Approvals of quotes, of images, of the final combined image, of the Facebook and

Twitter posts to accompany it.

• The featured subject may be affiliated with more than one unit, in which case,

make sure that development/communications person can review also

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Tracking Progress

• Day # - For a 30 day countdown, start with day 30 and number in descending order

• Date

• Day of the Week – So your biggest stories don’t get posted on a weekend.

• Event – Are there other things happening you can take advantage of? A sporting event? A holiday?

• Who? – Name of the person to be featured

• Unit – Make sure a variety of units across the institution are represented

• Category – Undergrad; Grad Student; Faculty/Staff; Alum; Administrator; Athlete; etc.

• Contact – Keep a record of who you have worked with to get images, text, and approvals.

• Notes – This is where I kept status regarding approvals (e.g. Image approved 9/15, awaiting text from Jenny)

• Other Social Media – Any other university page that should be tagged in the post.

• Twitter Post – Text of the post, including any links and accounting for space to post an image and staying within character count. Get approval ahead of time.

• Facebook Post - Text of the post, including any links. Get approval ahead of time.

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Creating a Calendar

• Kickoff and close the countdown with a bang

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Creating a Calendar

• Kickoff and close the countdown with a bang

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Creating a Calendar

• Use notable events to your advantage

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Approval Process

• Make sure all stakeholders have a chance to review and weigh in

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Track

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• Created a Facebook Event

• Publicized this link on multiple

social media updates, ad in U-M

paper, email to faculty/staff, on

umich.edu

• RESULTS

• Going: 1,081

• Maybe: 257

• Invited: 3,951

*data via Facebook

Facebook Event

• On 10/30 an email signed by our

VP of Development went out to all

U-M faculty/staff.

• The call to action was to join and

share the Facebook Event for

campaign kickoff.

• RESULTS

• 44,754 sent

• 16% opened (7,277)

• 1.7% clicked FB link (777)

Email

• Student Volunteer Committee

planned and executed

• Promoted on Twitter and

Facebook

• About half of questions were

planted by committee, half were

organic

• Offered an opportunity to have

unfiltered, direct access to top

level staff directly involved in the

campaign.

• RESULTS

• Received 55 total comments

Student Philanthropy

• Member of the Student Volunteer

Committee tweeted from

@umichstudents for the week

leading up to kickoff

Student Philanthropy

• Posted Thursday November 7 th.

• Text of post: 4 Billion as a goal,

umich launches its most

ambitious fundraising campaign.

Tomorrow's public kick off

campaign will be at Ingalls Mall

at 5pm. Come to join us, Free

food.

• RESULTS

• 40 Retweets

• 26,000 Impressions

*data via Weibo

Weibo

• Pre-show scroll of Tweets on arch

above Hill Auditorium

• Tweets were pre-prepped and

vetted ahead of time

• 53 Tweets, all using

#victorsformichigan

Twitter at the Event

*data via Facebook

• Gained 377 Facebook Likes

Facebook Results

*data via Topsy and Twitter Counter

• Gained 216 Twitter Followers (90 of them on 11/8)

Twitter Results

*data via TweetReach Pro

• Reached 2.5M Twitter users

• 7M Impressions

Twitter Results

*data via TweetReach Pro

Twitter Results

Now What?

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Re-use Existing Content

• Post one image a day in hallway of office.

• Could have been collected into a book for President/committees

• Used as centerpieces for press conference announcing campaign goal

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Online Ambassador Program

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#VictorsValentine

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THANK YOU!

Shannon Riffe

sriffe@umich.edu

@rifferaff

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