Shakespeare and Social Media?
This semester I am interning with Temple’s English Department. You may be wondering, why are you interning with them if you are an advertising student? The English Department at Temple is trying to create a community of students, alumni, and faculty through social media. That’s where I come in. I am starting the first social media outreach in the English Dept. through Facebook. Now, we all know that Facebook is all about connections and that’s exactly what the Department wants to accomplish. By creating an online presence we hope to establish a community of people all interested in similar things. Students who like this page will have the opportunity to see what alumni have accomplished and the site will encourage alumni to connect and interact with Temple.
A challenge that I have encountered is encouraging people to want to interact with this page. I think this is true for a lot of brands, how can you provide a space for people to talk freely about your brand while promoting positive interaction with others who have the same interests?
I’ve learned that a great tool that helps sort out these problems is Facebook’s Insights. Using this, I can see what generates activity on the site. Is it updating the status? Is it adding new photos? Looking at the dates of posts I can better understand what users want from this site. Because this information is so new, I hope to continue use Insights to make a page that people want to visit and interact with.
How are you promoting the facebook page/getting people to join or even raising awareness about the page? Does the English department have a facebook link on their page?
Yes, we are trying to promote Facebook through a listserv to English undergrad and grad, alumni, and faculty. We do not have a link on the their webpage right now, but I am going to encourage adding a link. I am also trying to reach out to student organizations who may have an interest in the Department.