SMSsummit Higher Ed — Live Virtual Conference
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
All agenda times are listed and will be presented in Pacific Daylight Time
8:35 am–8:45 am PDT
Welcome Remarks by Conference Producer Breanna Jacobs
8:45 am - 9:30 am PDT
Panel
How to Work within Different Organizational Structures to Optimize Your Social's Impact
(READ MORE)
This panel will explore topics including how to:
- Get content buy-in within a decentralized campus
- Identify content gaps
- Understand how and when to engage faculty
- Appropriately condense channels and outlets of communication
- Find and embrace colleagues across the campus community
- Apply successful storytelling best practices across varied organizational structures
- Streamlining the approvals process
9:30am - 9:45am PDT
Break
9:45 am–10:30 am PDT
Case Study
Many researchers suggest that there is a unified sweet spot on social media platforms to time your posts for optimal engagement. Few identify solutions for the challenges we experience when our organizations have a diverse set of goals for a variety set of stakeholders.
While simply feeding “the content monster” is often times the best we can do as social media managers, it’s time we start thinking strategically about how to effectively communicate our organization’s key messages to the right audience at the right time.
In this session, Rachel will use her own experiences as case studies to discuss the importance of knowing your digital audiences, resources for creating relevant and timely social content, and ways to amplify your reach for continued success.
Takeaways include:
- Real-life examples to illustrate to-dos and not to-dos
- Best practices on how to create valuable posts for the right platform and audience
- Resources for content generation and other promotional tools
10:30 am–11:15 am PDT
Panel
How to Pitch New Ideas and Share Social Metrics with Colleagues and Executive Leadership Not Active on Social
Associate Director of Enrollment Services Communication & Marketing
University of Houston
11:15 am–11:25 am PDT
Save Time to Focus on Educating—Not Marketing
(READ MORE)
Did you know that Constant Contact partners with educational services and institutions just like you? Whether you’re representing a school, a district, or a university with multiple departments, as a Constant Contact partner, you’ll be able to give your staff and educators a Constant Contact account with the flexibility to customize content for their own online marketing efforts. Whether you want to drive recruitment, secure donations, or engage students and alumni, we have all the tools and support needed, all in one place. Attend this session to learn more.
11:25am - 12:00pm PDT
Break
12:00pm - 1:00pm PDT
Social media experts claim that organic reach is dead and paid reach is the only way to share content with your intended audience. So, what do you do first? Which platform? How much should you budget? What audience?
During this masterclass, we help you answer those questions plus more by breaking down your specific goals, the specific platforms you can use to reach your audience and how to optimize your ad spend. This session will best suit an attendee who is looking for introductory techniques as well as some advanced tactics. We will also discuss how to utilize your paid strategies to recruit and communicate with students on a one to one level on social and how to present the information in a digestible way on a platform they utilize on a daily basis.
1:00pm - 1:45pm PDT
Panel
Balancing Duties as a Social Media Manager While Executing on New, Creative Ideas
(READ MORE)
There are so many areas where it’s incredibly important for a social media lead to have a seat at the table: in meetings about emergency/crisis communications, in higher-level brand-strategy planning and audience development, and in conversations with various university communicators about how to best coordinate messaging.
But being in all those places can sometimes encroach on making time for the core job at hand: planning and executing on great posts that get people's attention.
This panel will explore:
- What are (or should be) a social media strategist’s most important functions
- Consistently go back to the basics, like re-evaluating team objectives and individual roles to ensure social innovation gets the attention it deserves
- How you can regularly make room for new social ideas and initiatives without compromising your involvement in higher-level planning
- Prioritize your creative ideas (and make sure they don’t constantly get put on your back burner)
- Examples of universities executing on new ideas during challenging times
3:00 pm PDT
Higher Ed Conference Concludes
SMSsummit Corporate — Live Virtual Conference
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
All agenda times are listed and will be presented in Pacific Daylight Time
8:45 am–9:30 am PDT
Keynote
More Brain, Less Storm: The Power of the Creative Process
(READ MORE)
Whether you're leading an enterprise content team, or serving as a content team of one, we're all on a mission to create the best possible content with the resources that we have. We look for every opportunity to reduce the time, money, and manpower wasted during creation and distribution, but what about creative waste? Creativity, after all, is a process. It's time to optimize our creative processes, too, so we can confidently and efficiently generate more ideas—and better ideas—for how to share our brand story with the world.
9:30 am-9:45am PDT
Break
9:45 am–10:30 am PDT
"Ask Us Anything" Panel
Influencer Marketing Best Practices
(READ MORE)
Panelists will be taking attendee questions LIVE during this 45 minute "AMA" style session. They'll also share how their respective brands are managing their influencer marketing programs right now. Come prepared with your questions - you really can ask them anything!
10:30 am–11:15 am PDT
Panel
Aligning Social Media Strategy with Broader Business Goals to Drive Growth
11:15 am–11:45 am PDT
Break
11:45 am–12:45 pm PDT
Live Workshop
Google Analytics Fundamentals: How to Measure What Matters for Your Business
(READ MORE)
What are your visitors doing? What aren’t they doing? Where are they coming from? Which marketing activities are making a difference?
If you have Analytics, you have insights waiting to be discovered. This is the session where we show you step-by-step how to set things up, find insights and take action. Be prepared to level-up your digital marketing expertise.
- Learn the proper setup (or quick cleanup) of Google Analytics
- Get acquainted with the most useful reports in your Analytics
- Find out which reports answer which questions and support which decisions
- Make sure can you get the right information out of your Analytics quickly and efficiently
It only takes a few minutes to fix big setup issues and find the nuggets of truth that will make you a better marketer. This presentation is geared toward beginners who are new (or new-ish) to Google Analytics.
12:45pm - 1:30pm PDT
Succeeding in the World of Online Reviews
(READ MORE)
Businesses are getting creative when it comes to connecting with consumers during the pandemic. Now more than ever, your online reputation is important––it's the most honest way to communicate customer expectations and exude anticipated quality. Learn how to leverage your online reputation in a way that helps grow your audience, increase engagement and drive revenue.
Key takeaways, you'll learn:
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Best practices for building a great online reputation
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How to manage your reviews and what to do with them, regardless of the rating
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How to stay connected and relevant among the competition
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How to communicate your current business COVID operations to your customers and community
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Strategies, tips and tricks for leveraging Yelp's free tools to take your business to the next level
1:30pm - 2:15pm PDT
Next Level Interactive Social Media Marketing With No-Code Tools
(READ MORE)
In this session, Saksham will show you how to build interactive marketing products across the customer journey to grow your business, including graders, contests, calculators, quizzes, recommendations, chatbots, or AR apps.
He’ll walk you through examples like Hubspot's free marketing grader, Moz's site analyzer, VenturePact's mobile app cost calculator, New York Times's dialect quiz, Ikea's AR app, L'Oreal's AR app, and Nike's fitness apps. All of these examples are free tools that help drive your social media engagement, build an audience, and generate leads for your business by adding value to a customer during a micro-moment.
2:15 pm PDT
Day 1 Live Summit Concludes
Thursday, October 29, 2020
8:45 am–9:30 am PDT
Keynote
The One-Person Social Team: Scrappy Social Media Strategies with Big Impact
(READ MORE)
Do you ever look at a brand’s social media presence and automatically assume a team of 20 is making that magic happen? Chances are it is actually a smaller team, a team of one. In this session, Katelyn Brower, Social Media Manager of Sterling, will help you become a stronger social media manager as you act as a team of one for your organization. You'll learn how to better strategize, prioritize, partner with teams across the organization, and most importantly deliver results. Strength comes in small numbers, let Katelyn show you how!
Takeaways include:
- Working across the entire organization (not just marketing) to boost brand awareness, lead generation, and client success/support
- Optimizing content to fit across multiple social media platforms, multiple times
- Prioritizing your time and projects as a one-person team
9:30 am–9:45 am PDT
Break
9:45 am–10:30 am PDT
Scaling Your Paid Media in Emerging Platforms
(READ MORE)
Brand new social platforms are emerging almost monthly, with advertisers being pressured to deliver consistent results while also being early adopters of these new emerging technologies. With new platforms like TikTok, or even smaller ones like Quora or Snapchat, how can you know which one is the right fit?
In their presentation, Zenia and Vernon will share a winning strategy, where they outline:
- The newest social platforms that are delivering the best results for our clients
- Understanding if a platform is the right fit for your customers
- The ideal testing methodology to determine the impact of running media on a new channel
- How to develop a creative and messaging theme that will resonate with your core audience regardless of platform
10:30 am–11:15 am PDT
Case Study
Social Media: It’s Not All About You!
(READ MORE)
If I asked you to scroll through your Instagram right now, how many brands that you follow would pop up just in a minute or two? Do you actively engage with those posts? Do you ever buy something just because you saw it on Instagram? Companies of all sizes have embraced Social Media over the last 5-7 years as the newest form of digital marketing and in more recent times, it’s become a key sales driver for many. New products, customer reviews, mission statements, UGC (User Generated Content), and more, are all types of content you would expect to see on a brand’s page.
Now, imagine you saw a brand you follow post their version of a viral meme, write something on Twitter that made you laugh, or respond to a comment you left them to let you know they were there for you. The MOST important thing consumers (64% of consumers if we are being exact) is to feel like a brand wants to connect with them. How do we do this? Find what consumers care about and meet them there. This session will talk about how to make your brand’s social media more about the consumer, and less about you/your brand.
Key Takeaways:
- Best practices from me to you. Love, Reebok.
- Finding the balance between what your consumers want and what still fits your brand’s identity.
- The #1 secret to finding what your consumers care about. HINT: It’s not a secret...
11:15 am–11:45 am PDT
Break
11:45 am–12:30 pm PDT
Attention is Everything: Using Video to Build Brand Love and Drive Action
(READ MORE)
Earning your customer’s attention is everything. Nothing can be achieved without it. Only once you’ve captured it can you ask someone to share, subscribe, or buy. (And winning attention is hard to do when a person is scrolling through 300 feet of mobile content per day). Video as a creative medium is unparalleled in its ability to grab attention, build brand love, and drive action. This session teaches marketers to build strategies that stop-the-scroll by:
- Understanding the key differences in user mindset and creative strategy across Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok in the eyes of a marketer and a user.
- Applying universal creative best practices across platforms and the neuroscience behind why they work.
- Efficiently creating video assets that will capture attention and drive action.
12:30 pm–1:15 pm PDT
Falling Up: The Only Way to Grow on Social Media
(READ MORE)
In today’s social climate, brands must be willing to take risks (and inevitably fail a few times) in order to be culturally relevant with consumers. It might take posting several videos that flop to land on the one that goes viral - it’s a long game of quantity leading to quality. What most brands don’t realize, is that avoiding such risks will only lead to avoiding opportunity. In this session, hear from Brendan Gahan, Founder of Epic Signal and Partner & Chief Social Officer at Mekanism, on the best ways to develop a social community over time and how he’s leveraged learnings from small failures to generate exponential wins.
1:15 pm PDT
Live Summit Concludes
Higher Ed On-Demand Sessions
You have unlimited access to these talks — watch when and where you want!
The role of a college president is unique and challenging given the demands of the position as well as the shifting higher education landscape. Covid-19 has created unprecedented concerns including the inability to connect with stakeholders in person. In this session, you will learn more about the importance of presidential digital engagement both for the leader and the institution as well as research-backed strategies for creating a robust digital presence even with limited resources. We’ll discuss the seven reasons why presidents should devote time and resources to digital engagement and the steps you can take to support their individual styles.
How I Rebranded My 50 Year Old College
(READ MORE)
Branding is important. Aside from a name, a logo, color scheme, and language are the most identifiable assets that an institution has in order for people to know who this entity is, or what they represent. You see it all the time: businesses, people, products, the list goes on. And educational bodies aren’t exempt from this, either.
But sometimes, there may be an instance in which the current brand image may not communicate the message that the institution is trying to portray. Or perhaps, it’s just dated and needs to evolve to stay relevant in a rapidly changing world. Universities and colleges, in particular, have been known to rebrand – some successfully, others – not so much.
In this session, Chris will walk you through the steps he used to get leadership, athletics, and everyone impacted onboard, as well as the rebranding redesign process itself.
Takeaways include:
- How to get everyone on board with a rebrand
- The best process for redesign and a roll-out
- Where to look to avoid the pitfalls in the rebranding process
Social Media Strategies for Admissions
(READ MORE)
This presentation will discuss the advantages of an admission office having their own social media accounts and how to utilize resources you already have in place. You’ll also learn tactics on how to develop a positive working relationship with your main marketing/communications department.
You’ll hear about how to create opportunities for customer service on social, including lead generation and how to build your follower base and find user-generated content.
Lastly, discover how you can utilize your current student population to help your enrollment efforts.
Takeaways – how to:
- Start an admission social media account
- Collaborate with others to produce valuable content
- Create customer service and lead gen. opportunities on social
- Utilize current students
Maximizing Digital Content to Engage International Students a Rapidly Changing Landscape
(READ MORE)
In this session, we will first discuss the current state of international student recruitment and how your university can handle challenging communications. The world is an ever-evolving place, especially the current state of higher education. I'll talk about ways to assuage student and parent concerns while maintaining your brand voice.
To do so, I will discuss the importance of creating effective campaigns by utilizing storytelling. This will help your institution get ahead of the negative news and position your brand in a positive light, all while increasing connections with students.
After this session, attendees should be able to:
- Address current international student issues.
- Increase your connections with potential international students.
- Create campaigns the put a positive spin on current events.
- Connect with students on a human level, utilizing and amplifying student stories.
Social Media and Communications Specialist
Institute of International Education, EducationUSA
Event Coverage in A Virtual World
(READ MORE)
With the loss of in-person events, there has been a significant increase in virtual programming. This presents a challenge to social media professionals who aim to generate audience engagement during these annual events. In my presentation, I will share how I've covered these events in real-time, how video has been an essential part of this work, and how I've managed to develop a new model for this work which much different from what I do for live, in-person events.
Social Media Analytics: Making Better Use of Your Data to Create Targeted Campaigns
(READ MORE)
Many times we find ourselves in a meeting, either pre-campaign or post, trying to explain the measurables to administrators for either justification or approval. This is why it is paramount that we understand our social media analytics. Understanding the data can guide us through our decision-making process, and it allows us to get the most bang for our buck in paid campaigns. Understanding the data and being able to explain that data, can help justify your ask or combat a bad idea.
Takeaways include how to:
- Take a look at the free data that platforms provide.
- Explore how to use data to create targeted campaigns that will yield promising results.
- Discuss how to explain your campaign results to your administrators in a way that makes sense.
Assistant Director, Marketing and Brand Strategy/Social Media
The University of Mississippi
Case Study
Social media is becoming part of many staff roles within higher ed. This presents a variety of challenges for higher education social media managers as those managing social media accounts at colleges and universities are a mixture of novice, intermediate, and advanced users. Additionally, students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends interact with social media in different ways and every college major interacts with social media in unique ways. In order to overcome these challenges, social media teams need to work together and be "social" behind the scenes.
Within Penn State's College of Health and Human Development, we’ve worked to break down department silos and develop ways to learn from each other. Together we've helped novice users become more familiar with social media and helped the experts look at things in a different light. This allowed our team to feel empowered and develop their own approaches to social media and spearhead various initiatives.
This presentation will describe how we moved from 10 independent social channels to one social enterprise working together to achieve the same goal. We'll highlight an Instagram takeover focused on undergraduates and strategies to reach alumni, specifically those graduates of the last decade. At the conclusion of our presentation, we'll provide a virtual toolkit for attendees where you can replicate or borrow any of our strategies, tools, templates, and more.
Assistant Director, Engagement, College of Health and Human Development
Penn State University
Communications and Marketing Coordinator for College of Health and Human Development
Penn State
Corporate On-Demand Sessions
Reels is an evolution in the future of entertainment as well as a big part of the next chapter of Instagram, which brings together friends, interests, and entertainment like no other platform. Reels is a new way to create and discover short, entertaining videos on IG, and gives people new ways to express themselves, discover more of what they love, and help anyone with the ambition of becoming a creator take center stage. This session will highlight best practices, provide an overview of available creative tools, and demonstrate how you can start experimenting with Reels today.
Surviving Instagram Algorithm Changes to Boost Performance
(READ MORE)
Staying up on the latest Instagram changes is hard. In this session, we'll cover leveraging the newest Instagram features, including:
- Instagram's Creator Studio for scheduling Feed Posts and IGTV.
- Reels - Instagram's answer to TikTok
- The newest stickers (Countdown sticker, Quiz sticker, Chat sticker, Polls, plus how to get the Music Sticker if you don't have it!)
- How to Grow Your Following by Collaborating and Going Live
- How to stay up on the latest features of Instagram easily.
Managing Negative Sentiment and Trolls on Social Media — When and How Should You Respond?
(READ MORE)
Keyboard warriors. They’re everywhere these days — or at least that’s how it feels. Maintaining positive sentiment with your audience is critical to building a lasting relationship, but social media trolls can turn an innocent mistake or misinformation into a public relations crisis overnight. In order to avoid lasting damage, it’s important to know when and how to respond to your harshest and most vocal critics.
In this session, you will learn the tools you need to have in your toolkit to be prepared for the inevitable moment when something goes wrong on social media. We’ll discuss how to monitor the conversation, best practices for engaging (or not), and the building blocks of a good social media crisis plan.
Attendees will leave with a better understanding of:
- Tools for monitoring sentiment and conversation about your company
- Framework for deciding when to engage with trolls
- How to build a successful social media crisis plan
Reporting: How to Set Yourself Up for Success
(READ MORE)
Media planners see the world differently. In dissecting campaign performance, media teams are able to dig under the surface of the numbers, finding real truths about the audiences that brands are trying to reach - or even in some cases uncovering complex or trending behavior. In this session, learn how to translate your findings to your clients and brand decision-makers. What about your reporting creates trust between you and your client? How will you cull down complicated data to improve your campaign? Where can you pinpoint cost savings and efficiencies?
Personal Branding for Professionals
(READ MORE)
Nowadays, it seems like everyone is a “personal brand.” But you don’t need to be a social media influencer to put some basic strategies to work for you in building your business reputation online. We’ll discuss figuring out the basics of your brand, clarifying your message, and setting up your visual and "voice/tone" branding. We’ll also discuss determining your target audience, deciding where to be visible online, content and engagement strategy, and how to extend those online relationships to offline business.
How to Get 100x ROAS on Facebook and Instagram
(READ MORE)
In this session, you will learn how to optimize your Facebook and Instagram Ads for your ecommerce website. Facebook, when used correctly, can be a powerful advertising platform to help drive ecommerce sales. As a self-taught Facebook Ads expert, Uzair will give some key points on how you can make your ads achieve better results.
Key action items Uzair will cover include:
- Setting up the campaign correctly
- Determining the right demographics to target
- Choosing creative and copy that will most likely resonate with your target demographic
AI & Social Media: Your Toolkit for Success
(READ MORE)
Artificial Intelligence. It’s mystical, it’s fascinating, and it is the most prominent of the tech buzzwords heading into the 2020s. For digital marketer’s, AI is most often seen as a piece of technology that is untouchable and near impossible to be able to deploy successfully. Well, the good news is that AI is no longer confined to a black box of mystery. In fact, there are many cost effective and easy-to-use AI-powered tools that already exist that can help you to grow and empower your social media strategy. All you need is a roadmap and a place to start.
In this thought-provoking session, you will:
- Learn the basics of Artificial Intelligence: what it is, how it works, and why it matters
- How AI has been and will continue to impact marketer’s heading into the 2020s
- Learn about some of the AI-powered tools available today that can help enhance your social media strategy
- Leave with a roadmap that can help you to determine where AI can best fit within your digital marketing strategy to yield the greatest ROI
A year at Klarna: 500K to 5M users
(READ MORE)
Klarna launched its US Direct to Consumer (DTC) shopping app in 2019. Gylan Saunders and Jon Chang will present examples of the growth marketing structure and social media paid marketing campaigns that grew the Klarna user base to over 5M users in just one year.
3 key takeaways:
- How to use influencers in performance marketing
- Making the most out of existing assets and processes
- Examining social media data to make the best decisions
How to Choose & Optimize the Right Social Platform for your Brand
(READ MORE)
Almost all brands have a presence on social media, but the bigger question is if they are on the right platforms to reach their target audience and if they are leveraging those platforms to their fullest.
With new social media platforms emerging and younger audiences with more buying power, is it time for your brand to re-evaluate your channel strategy?
During the presentation, we'll cover:
- Using target audience research to determine the best platforms
- How to identify the right channels and KPIs for your objectives
- Ideal content types and messaging by platform
- Key tactics that are driving the best results on those platforms
How to Build a Platform-Tailored Approach to Social Video
(READ MORE)
Zuck has said it himself, “Over the next few years, the much bigger driver of the business and determinant of how we do is going to be video.” If Zuck’s words aren’t enough, 1 in 3 social video viewers watch videos made by brands, and a majority of internet users – 56% – watch video across all social platforms every month. This session is designed to show you how to repurpose video content to be utilized for organic & paid content across a variety of social channels. Our goal is to help you understand the best way to work with what you have, so you can save time & energy in analyzing video performance and do more of what works for your business and fans!
Adding a Latinx celebrity to an existing campaign, then calling it a day, is one way to try your hand at multicultural marketing. But that doesn’t speak to diverse audiences--at least not in the right way, and not with the right tone.
As marketers, we have a collective responsibility to understand and serve our customers in all the right ways, which includes ensuring we properly understand our audiences, their needs and their cultural nuances so that we can use elements which speak to them specifically.
After this session, you will have an enhanced understanding of:
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How to recognize when you are tapping into damaging stereotypes
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How to implement key motivators that keep audiences and their attention, as opposed to turning them away
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How brands can benefit from properly connecting with multicultural audiences
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How to build long-term relationships with Latinx creators
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How to turn stereotypes figures into heroes