Creating fresh content daily can become difficult no matter how big your team is. How can you make sure your content gets seen by the most people? The answer: remix and repurpose.

Repurposing content may seem tedious, but it could be a breath of fresh air for your social media strategy. It allows you to breathe life into old, evergreen content and continue to gain value from posts and brand messages. When you remix old content, you’ll already have a head start, and more time (and coffee) is something we could all use.

With examples, metrics, and methods used by the team at UNC-Chapel Hill, participants will better understand creative ways to repurpose content and utilize trends on Twitter and Instagram to give content new life for their institution.

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Developing relevant content and growing an audience on TikTok requires a unique skill set and mindset. In this panel, speakers will share what they’ve learned on their journeys in developing their TikTok channels. Attendees will discover key tips for making the most of their presence on the platform, whether they are still testing it out or are looking for other growth strategies.

Discussion topics include:

• How to stay up to date on TikTok trends to inform timely, relevant content
• Getting starting on a new platform while balancing your remaining workload
• Insights on how to grow your audience when you’re just getting started
• How to capitalize on the unpolished and authentic quality of the platform
• How to collaborate on content with affiliated college or university accounts, faculty, staff, leadership, and students
• Identifying your TikTok content pillars that align with your institution’s brand
• Examples of content that have worked well and how you can replicate them on your channel

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Youth audiences can be challenging to connect with: privacy regulations are constantly changing, youth are exposed to more than 6,000 ads daily, and their online habits are evolving. Compounding those challenges, higher education institutions often have a unique process, compliance, and branding needs.

Backed by decades of youth advertising experience, Glacier will demonstrate how to develop a messaging strategy that resonates, analyze the most effective channels to create impact, and provide real-life examples to tie it all together. The time is now to take your youth advertising strategy to the next level.

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A quick Google search will tell you how to get more followers, how to create engaging content, and how many times a day you should post to TikTok, but the feasibility of this advice is dependent on resources, org structures, and more. Not to mention that some of this advice doesn’t work or isn’t appropriate in the higher ed space - looking at you, Wendy’s community management strategy, and audio that gets taken off content. 

The Unofficial Guide to Higher Ed Social Media will share the intentional ways that teams of 2 or 25 can strengthen their social media presence. From analytics to emojis and, yes, you may even hear the word TikTok, this session will cover the breadth of social media need-to-knows because some things can’t be Googled.

Using tried and analyzed practices from the UNC Charlotte social media team, participants will leave this session knowing:

• Why engagement rate is the superior metric
• What it really means to design for mobile
• What “best practices” on social aren’t best practices anymore
• Why is community management more than just answering questions
• The small things that can make a big impact on their day-to-day

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This panel will explore several unique programs to showcase the variety of ways to work with students to help support an institution’s social media content and highlight day-to-day life on campus.

Attendees will learn about striking the right balance between guidance and creative freedom for student workers, how/where institutions are hosting and promoting student-produced content, and how it can complement your other social media messaging.

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Believe it or not, executive social media strategy and influencer culture go together like PB&J. A quality brand social media strategy must include social media planning and support for executive leadership. Their voice, combined with the universities, can grow their personal brand and influence and strengthen your brand strength as a whole.

Discussion topics include:

• Defining an influencer. What this means in higher ed at large and within your internal community.
• Developing and building a strategy unique to the mission of a leader.
• Finding their voice and distinguishing it from the primary brand.
• Finding harmony and balance between the mission and the human.

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Most conversations about diversity, social justice, and inclusion work surround adopting best practices and replicating strategies that have worked elsewhere. We discuss little about how these strategies fit our populations and what adaptations we need for our game plans to feel "at home" at our institutions. 

Using the design thinking model and a creativity framework developed by Amma, participants will have a greater understanding of what institutional knowledge, creative thinking, and a commitment to exploration can do to promote justice and equity on campus. They will get to test these strategies with real issues within their organization.

By the end of the session, participants will:

• Develop a greater understanding of the concepts of equity, justice, and cultural humility - and why they serve us better than "Smaller" ideas of diversity and inclusion
• Cultivate confidence in applying principles of creativity to infusing their areas of influence with equity and justice
• Find new resources for ensuring their work meets standards of equity and justice

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Join one of our small-group video roundtable discussions to share new ideas with your peers. Speakers will lead these discussions. There will also be open networking tables to meet and greet other attendees.

Confirmed discussion tables:

• Getting started with Snap Ads, led by Webb Lewis with the University of Mississippi
• User-Friendly Apps and Tools for Video Content, led by Sabiha Afrin, American University School of Public Affairs
• How to Take a Customer Service Approach to Social Media, led by Laurie Roberts, Johnson & Wales University
• How to Plan Content: Creative Idea Generation, Scheduling Ahead, Impromptu Content, and Content in a Crisis, led by Deanna Stevens, Kent State University
• How to Identify Internal Advocates/Influencers at Your Institution with Jadis Tillery, ikwe

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This panel will discuss:

• Guidelines and templates your team can have in place to help decide if a department should create a new social media channel
• Training, onboarding, and ongoing support for other departments on campus that are interested in participating in social
• Supporting collaborative communication and idea-sharing across the university community
• Creative ways to share ongoing trends, data, wins, and ideas with other university social media managers
• Setting up other departments for success on social with tools and resources
• Working alongside other departments to create and promote content that aligns with the university brand

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Tracking metrics and social media ROI often fall under the purview of solo social media marketers. In this session, Joel will share tips for managing metrics and analytics when time and resources are of the essence. 

You’ll learn how to:

• Keep track of the important metrics if you’re facing data-overwhelm
• Identify what you should be measuring and how often to pull these insights
• Different ways to organize and calculate metrics
• Streamline tracking and reporting to make your life easier
• Prioritize metrics and performance analysis alongside all of your other social media duties

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Creating an effective content calendar requires that marketers be thoughtful, flexible, and creative. Panelists will explore approaching calendars from a strategic perspective down to the nuts and bolts of execution and logistics. Attendees will also leave with tips on incorporating content calendar planning into their social media workload.

Discussion topics include:

• Approaching calendar holidays, large events, and history months. How can marketers make sure they are planning around the events that align with their institution’s brand and showing up in a meaningful way through content?
• Content planning. How far in advance should content be planned out? What’s the right balance between scheduled content and leaving room for impromptu posts? What happens to your scheduled content when a crisis comes up?
• The nuts and bolts of a content calendar. What tools, collaboration tips, and templates work well to keep track of content across channels and audiences?
• Learning and refining your content calendar. How can marketers continually optimize their content calendar and planning process to make their lives easier?

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This panel will explore a day in the life of a social media manager from 3 different institutions. Attendees will leave with insights into how different campus teams are structured, manage their time, and collaborate with other departments. The panel will also explore how a social media dream team might look. 

Panelists include:

• Nicole Lossie, the solo social media manager within a 10-person marketing comms team at a 4,500-student private university.
• Eileen Reynolds, managing a social team of 3 within NYU's Office of Public Affairs and serving a student body of over 50,000.
• Liz Harter, the solo social media manager in the Office of Public Affairs and Communications at a private university with close to 13,000 students (graduate and undergraduate).
• Maria DeCabooter, managing a team of 2 plus student interns in the Office of Communications and Media Relations at a public university serving nearly 30,000 students in Flagstaff, statewide and online.

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Instagram has officially announced itself as a video-centered platform, so the priority of Reels is at an all-time high. But let's be honest, making Reels is not as easy as it looks. It's hard to know where to start, and it's easy to overthink the process and make videos that don't perform. It is also hard to distinguish Reels from TikToks - they are not created equal! Make TikToks instead of Reels, and the algorithm Gods will NOT favor you. 

Instagram continues to be a "home base" for many brands. An Instagram profile should show off your branding and be unique to your brand, but with Reels becoming prioritized, it becomes harder and harder to keep up with that highly sought-after aesthetic Instagram feed. Learn how to take advantage of the reach Instagram Reels offers without sacrificing a good-looking, branded feed.

Reels are in the spotlight, so it is easy to overlook Instagram stories. It is getting harder and harder to grab the attention of social media users, and with only the tap of a finger, followers can easily dismiss your content. Knowing tips and tricks for Instagram stories is essential to get your views up. 

Key takeaways: 

• Understand Reels strategy and maximize the potential of your reach
• Learn how to utilize native and external tools to produce Instagram Reels in seconds that the Instagram Reels algorithm will favor without sacrificing your branded feed
• Tips & tricks to bring up your Instagram story views

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Influencer marketing has proven to be a beneficial component of a holistic marketing strategy, providing value at various stages of the funnel. During this panel, tech, hospitality, and retail industry marketers will share examples of high-impact campaigns they’ve launched that have driven results from awareness to conversion. 

Topics include:

• Strategies for integrating influencer marketing into a larger marketing mix
• A review of the best types of campaigns and considerations for different stages of the funnel
• Using influencers to launch new products and drive traffic to e-commerce
• The benefits of paid and organic influencers and when/how to leverage them
• Best practices to extend the life of your influencer campaign content and maximize results

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Social media professionals are often asked how to authentically engage influencers to add legitimacy and tap into a broader audience to enhance their brand messaging. 

Given the complex and highly regulated health care industry, this can be a more challenging task than building an influencer program to promote a pair of shoes or a new TV show.  Beyond the legal red tape, it can be challenging to educate an influencer to accurately explain how your brand’s new drug or health care service will impact your brand intentions.

Every brand’s executives should be considered a vital component of the social media and influencer mix. Not only are their audiences highly relevant, but they have an intimate understanding and passion for the development of the program.  Learn how we have prioritized this across all businesses at CVS Health to move the reputational needle among our key audiences.

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This panel will discuss how various industries approach community building on social media. Topics include:

• Identifying the purpose of your community and how it aligns with your brand
• Choosing a community platform that best engages your audience
• Regularly engaging with your brand community and examples of incentives to keep them involved (contests, content, incentives, etc.)
• What it means for a community to be "fan-first"
• The impact a community can have on a brand's bottom line
• The role of brand ambassadors, superfans, and creators within a brand community

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TikTok – it’s not just a platform for dance challenges anymore. There’s an audience for almost everything on this video-based, ultra-engaging social media platform. But can brands make an impact in this space, and where do social media managers even begin?

In this session, Haley Correll, Senior Director of Social Engagement at American Red Cross, will walk you through how her team succeeded with the @AmericanRedCross TikTok account, growing it to more than 776K followers and 13M likes since its launch. Haley will share lessons learned, how TikTok can help brands reach new audiences, what a successful TikTok content strategy looks like, and why flexibility on this platform matters. 

Social media professionals will walk away from this session with:

• A better understanding of how organizations can use TikTok to advance their mission
• How to build a TikTok audience
• How to create content tailored to the platform with a team of any size
• A worksheet to use as a guide when creating your TikTok strategy

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Social media can be volatile, and in the world of ratios and cancel culture, it can be difficult to know whether or not people are engaging with brand content from a place of celebration or indignation. Celebrating just volumes over value and embracing total engagements over sentiment can lead to brand implosion quickly. This session will cover a custom metric used at AT&T that surfaces the emotional response of a post and helps guide the content strategy's what, when, and where. The custom SCNS (Social Comprehensive Net Sentiment) metric has driven the AT&T powerhouse strategic and creative team to an improvement in sentiment of over 40% and led to overall increases in success metrics across the board. Join Amber as she dives deeper into social measurement that makes sense.

What you’ll learn:

• SCNS: Social Comprehensive Net Sentiment, a weighted value-based calculation of engagements and sentiment
• Understand post, campaign, account, and channel sentiment based on how users are reacting to your content
• Better understand your audience’s preferences and affinities
• Optimize your moments – know what content plays on what court and in what climates

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As marketers, it's our job to understand the inner workings of social media platforms to optimize and package our brands and clients' social media content across their channels best.

However, working at the speed of social in the always-changing social ecosystem, it can be pretty daunting to keep up -- or better yet, understand and navigate the algorithms and ultimately prove ROI.

In this session, you'll learn:

• The breakdown of algorithms per social platform
• Why algorithms matter and keeping up to date with them
• Best practices for creating a stand-out content strategy
• Learn how to track your content performance for success

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This panel will discuss:

• How visual trends vary between platforms
• Pivoting social calendars and campaigns to fit what’s trending on each social channel
• The best ways to stay on trend in the social space
• Jumping on a trend vs. staying true to your brand
• How to create content that resonates with a variety of audiences
• How brands can show up on emerging platforms (like TikTok) and stay relevant as trends, conversations and platforms are everchanging

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