Kent State University’s Facebook page recently reached 40,000 Likes, and in celebration of this achievement, University Communications and Marketing ran a Facebook contest for its fans.
“We have traditionally held an annual giveaway when reaching 10K, 20K and 30K fans,” says Lin Danes, director of Web services and interactive media at University Communications and Marketing. “This contest, with its larger prize, is a way to express our appreciation to the individuals who follow us on Facebook.”
Linda Knolhoff, senior fine arts major, won an iPod Touch from this contest.
“Every once in a while, I will check the Kent State Facebook page to see what is going on,” says Knolhoff. “FlashLine always has nifty links to interesting information.”
Danes says the Facebook contest is only one way to interact with followers.
“We hope the contest encourages continued engagement with current friends and fans,” says Danes. “And perhaps by word of mouth or other promotions, we can pique the interest of others and nudge them to befriend Kent State in various social media spaces.”
Kent State’s Web team continues to promote its social media presence in several platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and recently expanded into other platforms including Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and Foursquare.
“We work hard to respond to questions and deliver interesting content to our friends in these spaces,” says Danes. “In 2013/2014, we hope to expand our contests to our social media platforms beyond Facebook.”
Kent State’s Web team monitors various social media platforms in order to determine which ones will have longevity. After monitoring these platforms, the Web team researches various university constituents to determine where they are spending most of their time in social media.
As a result of research, Danes believes that Instagram and Twitter are the best ways to reach future and current students, while faculty, staff and alumni seem to be better reached through LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
“During recent research with high school students, we learned that they are spending more and more time on Instagram,” says Danes. “This space dovetails nicely with the saying that a picture is worth 1,000 words. Because we have such a beautiful campus and interesting university community members, it’s the perfect opportunity to share images with those using that technology.”
In order to continue to encourage participation in Kent State’s social media platforms, the social media icons on the university’s home page and other kent.edu pages have been revamped.
“This change was implemented based on research around the effectiveness of our previous social media icons,” says Danes. “The social media by department icon in the ‘more’ section leads to an improved listing of all Kent State University department social media presences, from the College of Nursing’s Twitter feed to Kent State University’s YouTube page."
For more information, contact Danes at ldanes@kent.edu.