A blog from the social media team in Princeton University's Office of Communications featuring tips and best practices as told through stories by members of the Princeton social media community.
The Princeton Social Media team is looking to hire the University’s first student Instagram ambassador for the fall semester.
Princeton’s Student Instagram Ambassador will produce at least one piece of content for Princeton’s Instagram account each week of the semester. Content may include a feed post, Reel, IGTV or Instagram Story
Content will provide an inside look of campus life and student experiences ranging from campus beauty, events, academics, athletics, campus activities, etc.
Princeton’s Student Instagram Ambassador will be a public facing role, where our audiences will learn their point of view and experiences on campus and in the classroom
Who we are looking for:
An undergraduate student who is interested in sharing their Princeton experience with the world, but especially with prospective and current students
Someone who lives and breathes Instagram and all of the many features the platform offers
In addition to an interest in Instagram, the student must also be organized, responsive to emails and meet weekly deadlines for content. The student will also be required to meet with the social media team at least 1-2 times a week.
How to apply:
Send an Instagram Reel by September 20, 2021 to pusocialmedia@princeton.edu, explaining why you should get the gig
This position is open for the fall semester with the possibility of an extension into Wintersession and the spring semester
All content will be approved through the Princeton Social Media Team
2019 was a year of celebrating and recognizing Princetonians who are changing the world and living out our informal motto of “In the nation’s service and the service of humanity.”
Here are the stories and moments that surfaced to the top of our social media feeds.
Princeton’s James Peebles receives the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics
On October 8, 2019, the world woke up to the news that professor emeritus James “Jim” Peebles *62 had received the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics “for theoretical discoveries in physical cosmology.” Our team immediately took to social media to mark the occasion and give minute-by-minute updates as the University community celebrated Professor Peebles. Some of our social media coverage even made its way to a local news broadcast. When Professor Peebles traveled to Sweden in December to receive his Nobel, we were able to look back and re-share some of the great moments from October.
Princeton remembers Toni Morrison, Nobel-winning author and emeritus Princeton faculty member
In 2019, we lost many notable Princeton faculty members including professor emerita Toni Morrison. After announcing that she had passed away, the University used social media to celebrate her legacy, her impact and beautiful words … and the world listened and shared in the moment. (Photo credit: Sameer A. Khan/Fotobuddy)
Michelle Obama ‘85 gives video welcome message at Alumni’s “Thrive” Conference
Michelle Obama ‘85 surprised more than 1,200 Princeton alumni and guests at “Thrive: Empowering and Celebrating Princeton’s Black Alumni” with a video message. Immediately following the moment, we posted the video on social media for the rest of the world to watch.
Graduate student Xiyue Wang returns home after unjust imprisonment in Iran
In the summer of 2016, Princeton graduate student Xiyue Wang was detained by Iranian authorities while studying the Farsi language and doing dissertation research. Wang was charged with espionage, convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Ever since, the University community has been rallying in support of his release. On December 7, 2019, Xiyue Wang was released thanks to the United States government, the government of Switzerland, and the students, faculty and staff who continued to advocate for his freedom throughout this ordeal. (Photo credit: U.S. Embassy Switzerland)
Video continues to remain a dominate form of content for sharing our stories and messaging across platforms. However, we will continue to create content for specific channels and audiences - one piece of content does not fit all. Also, Twitter is not dead as we incorrectly predicted in 2017. Twitter has become an instrumental vehicle in adding Princeton’s voice to international conversations especially around climate change, innovation, and college access and affordability. Finally, LinkedIn is making a come back. This year, the top viewed video on LinkedIn was watched more than the top viewed videos on Twitter and Facebook. LinkedIn continues to be a platform of untapped potential especially as it continues to unveil new features.
Regardless of platform or features, authentic and timely content remains constant which we hope to continue to bring to our social media audiences in 2020.
While 2017 was fueled with space, politics and puppies, messages of empowerment and perseverance resonated most with our social audiences in 2018. Whether it be a FLI student (first-gen, low income student) sharing their journey to Princeton or a campus visitor delivering words of hope and change, our social audiences craved inspiration.
First-gen stories inspire our audiences to engage and share
Princeton is committed to finding the best and brightest minds from around the world regardless of their background or family income. Throughout 2018, our social media channels put a voice and conversation around these stories - in particular our #TellUsTigers series provided a platform for students to shed light on their journeys using 2,200 characters.
Instagram #1 most liked post: 2023 early action announcement (below)
Instagram #1 most commented post: 2023 early action announcement (below)
She Roars (and she’s social)
This year, Princeton hosted the She Roars alumni conference, the largest event in the University’s history held during the academic year which also made a splash on social media. The spirit of the conference lives on in an all new ”She Roars” podcast where change-making women discuss their career pathways and experiences at Princeton University.
Messages from speakers extend beyond their visit to campus
From Senator Cory Booker to Ellie Kemper to Nobel laureate Frances Arnold, Princeton University hosted a range of guests throughout the year. Their words became some of the most engaged with content on our channels.
The National Association of College & University Food Services presented Princeton University Campus Dining with the top award for “2018 Most Innovation Nutrition and Wellness Program.” The annual award recognizes colleges and universities that have implemented a unique and effective wellness or nutrition program during the previous year.
In an effort to directly educate students on how (easy it is) to make nutritious meals, Campus Dining partnered with the Office of Communications to film a series of culinary demos on Snapchat. These stories complimented events happening across campus. Watch the stories below!
Each Snapchat story received nearly 2,000 views and the recipes were screengrabbed up to 50 times. They were also met with high praise and interest from followers.
“It was a very proud moment for us in the areas of health, wellness and innovation,” said Melissa Mirota, campus wellness dietitian at Princeton University.
She Roars…She Tweets…She ‘Grams and we were there to capture it all! For three days, Princeton University hosted a conference for alumni* entitled “She Roars: Celebrating Women at Princeton.” More than 3,300 Tigers descended onto campus to listen to panels, participate in discussions and meet up with old classmates, and social media was at the center of it all. Here’s how a team of two covered the largest event in the University’s history held during the academic year:
*Even though the conference celebrates alumnae, attendees included women and men
Start with a plan but be flexible
Social media was involved from the early stages of planning the conference. This helped us understand the expectation and role of social media. From there, we developed our own planning document of goals, roles, tactics and content. This was our guiding light from planning to execution and was referenced hundreds of times (we highly recommend using Google Documents or a cloud-based word processing platform). As the conference evolved, it kept us organized and focused on what we wanted to achieve on social media.
As much as we planned and re-planned, when it came down to execution, we learned early on we needed to be flexible. For instance, we were asked to attend a panel that wasn’t part of our coverage plan. We just made it work. We had also planned to snap alumni video messages for Snapchat, but we didn’t have the bandwidth to complete the task.
Divide and Conquer
With a conference spanning across the University and over the course of three days, the reality was that we were not going to be able to cover everything. With our plan, we worked very closely with our colleagues in the Office of Communications as well as Alumni Affairs to coordinate coverage. This was the most critical step in all of our efforts because we forged a content army that conquered all of the great moments and stories from more than 3,300 attendees. Communication was key in making this a success, we were Slacking, emailing and DMing up until the very end.
In terms of the University’s social media team, Maddy was “the reporter on the ground” while Jessica was back at the office posting homepage stories and performing community management (responding, retweeting and liking posts). We also met with the social media team in Alumni Affairs and shared our coverage plan. The outcome of the meeting was one shared document, so we didn’t duplicate efforts throughout the conference. It took time to pull the information together, but it was an invaluable asset for all teams. We also got the word out about the conference to campus partners through our weekly social media newsletter. Don’t assume that others know the hashtag - tell them - and then remind them again!
Have a strategy for each platform
Just like the University’s social media strategy, we treated each platform separately and delivered content based on the audience and their expectations. We were very careful to craft and format content based on the features of each platform. Here’s how we broke it down:
Twitter: Live coverage and daily wrap-ups through Twitter Moments
Facebook: Headline stories and livestreaming
LinkedIn (yes, LinkedIn!): Headline stories and alumni stories who have LinkedIn accounts
Instagram: Photos of the most memorable moments
Instagram Stories: Live coverage and sharing user generated content
Branding! We wanted to look as official online as the conference did offline. Working with our graphic design team, we created an avatar, cover photo and quote card for each of our channels. We also included conference information in each of our profile bios so our followers understood why we looked different.
Live Smart Coverage
With more than 90 events and more than 200 presenters, we needed to be highly selective in what we covered live. So how did we choose? We went through the very manual process of researching presenters and their followings on Instagram and Twitter, but the time invested in the process proved valuable when we saw the social media reach of the panels we decided to cover. For the events we weren’t able to attend, we re-shared content from other accounts.
Here are the tactics we deployed while covering events live:
Photos: With the use of a WiFi SD card, we used a DSLR camera so that our photos were high res, up-close-and-personal. Our goal was to have our photography be as powerful as the text accompanying it.
Quotes: We listened for key messaging about the University and our alumnae, and let the jokes, audience questions and political/cultural content come from attendees.
Tagging: We tagged presenters and their companies wherever we could in hopes their accounts would share our content.
Facebook Live: For the events that were livestreamed, we asked our Broadcast Center to post the stream through our Facebook page. We have found much more engagement when events are streamed through our page verses posting a link.
An example of how great photography paired with a great quote can lead to great engagement.
Takeaways
Get a seat at the table from the beginning.
Always have a plan, but know how to pivot.
Don’t miss the opportunity to visually brand your accounts. It aligns with the overall conference and creates context for your followers.
One size doesn’t fit all. Take the time to deliver content based on your audience and the features of each platform.
If you’re a small team or even a team of one, leverage campus partners. Engage them early on the planning so everyone is on the same page.
Don’t cover everything. Find the events with the biggest impact based on social reach and re-share content from others.
High quality photos and copy lead to engagement
Outcomes and Looking Ahead
From October 4-7, 231 posts generated nearly 1.4M impressions from the University’s channels - several posts exceeded the performance of our monthly benchmark. Numbers aside, we received feedback from alumnae who couldn’t join in person saying how appreciative they were that they could follow the conference in real-time. Our social media presence also helped facilitate media requests and answer logistical questions from attendees.
Looking ahead, we hope to use this conference as a case study for events to come with some tweaks. For instance, we wish we could have done an exclusive Facebook Live interview with a panelist. We also wish we had a social media listening tool to better understand the reach of the conference beyond the engagement of our own channels.
Special Thanks
None of this would have been possible without the support and help of Alumni Affairs as well our own colleagues in the Office of Communications. It was a collective effort!
What was our most liked post on Facebook? Which post was retweeted the most? As 2017 winds down, we are taking a look at some of our top moments on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Solar eclipse in 90 seconds
It was a week before 2017’s total solar eclipse and our team brainstormed up the idea to create a short informational video using a Princeton astrophysicist as the expert. This was a new concept and process for our team. Many of our videos are between 4-5 minutes and take several weeks of planning and filming. The results:
On Sunday, January 29, 2017, President Eisgruber issued a statement in response to the federal executive order barring entry to the United States for refugees and for citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries. Days later, President Eisgruber and 47 other American college and university presidents sent a letter to President Trump urging him to “rectify or rescind” the executive order. Both stories were posted to the University’s website and then immediately distributed to our social media channels. Here’s how our social audiences reacted:
President Eisgruber issues statement on federal immigration executive order
Facebook: #2 most liked post
Facebook: #1 most commented post
Facebook: #1 most shared post
Facebook: #1 most clicked post
Twitter: #1 most retweeted post
Twitter: #1 most liked post
Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber has just issued a statement on the federal immigration executive order. https://t.co/KbtdBIpTd7
Launched in February 2016, Princeton’s weekly #TellUsTigers campaign introduces the world to Princetonians, one post at a time. It initially began as an Instagram campaign, but is now shared on Facebook and Twitter. On the first day of classes, we shared the story of Camden Olson ‘19 and her service dog, Koa. Not only did the post break our record of most liked Instagram post, but it also was the most liked post on Facebook. Some may say we cheated by placing a cute puppy in front of iconic Nassau Hall, but read the comments and you’ll find people took the time to read all 2,200 characters. Readers were truly touched by the service dog team’s mission to help Type 1 diabetics.
Be timely. As seen in all three moments, we learned that content must be topical and relevant to our audiences. Our editorial calendar is focused on sharing stories about how students, faculty and staff are making a difference in the world through research, publications and service as well as highlight important events on campus. As we shifted in telling more timely stories, we saw an exponential increase in engagement and reach for stories that were aligned with the news cycle. With more flexibility and quick thinking, we hope to do more of this in 2018.
Create short videos with high impact. At first, creating a compelling 90 second video seemed impossible as our team is accustomed to creating 4-5 minute videos. With careful planning, targeted questions and creative editing, we achieved our goal and were inspired to create more short videos that went on to be top performing content as well. For instance, we took this video of our vertical farm project and worked it into a short video which became the second most viewed video on Facebook.
In 2018, we hope to continue delivering short videos for our social audiences, some may be created from scratch while others can be created using existing footage from feature videos from the website.
Instagram > Twitter. This year, we were especially surprised to see that even though we have a larger following on Twitter, we received more engagement and better quality engagement on Instagram. For instance, the most watched videos on Twitter received between 4,000-6,000 views whereas on Instagram, the most watched videos received between 9,000-12,000 views. We saw this with click-throughs as well. A link in our Instagram Stories consistently outperformed a link included in a tweet.
More Facebook Lives = More reach. In addition to looking at likes, comments and shares, we analyzed which posts received the most reach on Facebook. Our Facebook Live broadcasts reached the most people, making 2017 the year of the Facebook Live broadcast for Princeton Social Media. We broadcasted our annual P-rade, Opening Exercises, Commencement as well as produced exclusive content including a rock concert, a pumpkin toss and an hour-long telethon. The more we did, the more we learned and expanded our equipment and caliber of broadcast. As we wrapped up the year, it was great to see our efforts rewarded by seeing that this content received the most reach. Will 2018 continue the year of Facebook Live? We are planning for it and will also stay apprised of new features coming out of Facebook.
So there you have it. #PrincetonSM in 2017. Happy New Year to all!
Dan Day, assistant vice president for communications at Princeton University recently sat down with Nate Riggs from the podcast, Digital Skillscast to discuss how technology impacts higher education communications.
In early 2015, Princeton Social Media committed efforts to our first Chinese-language social media platform, Weibo. Throughout the year, Jianing Zhao will help us share the full story of an academic year at the University with our Weibo followers. In addition to posting content similar to what we share with our English-language audiences in Mandarin, Jianing will share her own original updates, photos and blog entries targeted specifically to our Weibo audience. Without further ado, meet the new voice behind our Weibo account, Jianing.
This is Jianing, the social media intern for Princeton’s social media team! I manage Princeton’s official Weibo account (one of the most popular social media sites in China) and sometimes contribute posts to the University’s Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat accounts. At Princeton, I’m a sophomore concentrating in comparative literature and pursuing certificates in archeology, theater, and gender and sexuality studies. Outside of academics, I’m the head editor of “the Street” (Art & Culture) section of the Daily Princetonian, the president of the Russian Undergraduate Student Association, and I am currently directing a play for Princeton Chinese Theater.
As one who plans to go into communications and media for a future career, I’ve really enjoyed interning for Princeton’s social media team, as it not only has taught me how to frame content for different target audiences across different social media platforms, but also allowed me to get out of my comfort zone and interact with students across campus, which seems intimidating but turns out to be fun and rewarding!
The new princeton.edu uses big, beautiful images to tell Princeton’s story, a substantial change from the old site. In a new article on RE(design), the Princeton University Website Redesign Project blog, digital manager Christian Knoebel gives a behind-the-scenes explanation of the programming that helps translate those images to social media posts. The strategy helps us maintain our goal to be visual on social media as often as possible.
What’s it like to lead social media coverage for an international conference? This was my experience at the 2017 Fung Forum.
Princeton Social Media provided live social media coverage of the Princeton-Fung Global Forum, March 20-21, 2017, in Berlin, Germany, in order to share and enhance conversations held at the conference. Through the implementation of original social media updates, photos and videos as well as user-generated content, it is possible that hundreds of thousands of people now associate Princeton with the discussion surrounding one of today’s most pressing questions: Can liberty survive the digital age?
I accompanied Woodrow Wilson School staff to the conference to create and curate content for the University’s primary social media accounts on the following platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Storify.
The University’s social media coverage was supplemented by a team of students who provided conference updates from their perspectives by sharing photos in a WhatsApp group and on personal Twitter and Instagram profiles, which I shared on the main Princeton accounts. Students also created content for Princeton’s Snapchat account for the duration of the conference. The inclusion of student voices in Princeton’s social media output contributes to a sense of authenticity for a large portion of the University’s audience.
2017’s social media metrics show an improvement over metrics from the last Fung Forum, which occurred in 2015, in several significant measurements including the reach of our content, the number of times the #PrincetonFung hashtag was used, and video views. Overall, more people talked about the Fung Forum and saw more conference-related content in 2017 than in 2015.
#PrincetonFung became a trending topic on Twitter’s Trends list both days of the conference. Per Twitter, “the Trends list is designed to help people discover the ‘most breaking’ breaking news from across the world, in real-time. The trends list captures the hottest emerging topics…”
The Trends list amplified the Fung Forum hashtag and related content, meaning more people were made aware of it and therefore saw content combining Princeton University and conversations about liberty in the digital age that they otherwise would not have.
More social media conversation mirrored, and hopefully contributed to, increased conference attendance from the beginning of day one to the well-attended final sessions through Princeton University President Eisgruber’s closing remarks on day two when compared to the 2015 Fung Forum.
In addition to hosting speakers, panelists and attendees from around the world, the inclusion of social media promotion, live coverage and content curation in the conference’s communication strategy helped make the 2017 Fung Forum a truly global event.
