I managed all of the social media platforms — Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn — for Rutgers Global at Rutgers University. Rutgers Global is the university-wide office for international initiatives, including study abroad, international student and scholar services, global education programming, and more. Below are a few examples of my favorite posts and campaigns.
Study Abroad fair campaign
The Study Abroad Fair is a signature event of the Rutgers Global—Study Abroad office that occurs every semester and allows students to connect with representatives from our international study abroad programs. In Fall 2021, I led our first in-person Study Abroad Fair since the University returned to in-person instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because this was a major moment for the "return" of Study Abroad, we heavily marketed the Study Abroad Fair in order to reach as many students as possible and increase awareness. Below are snapshots from the marketing campaign on social media.
This is an Instagram post for our "Ask An Advisor" series where our audience could submit questions about Study Abroad on our IG story, and one of our Study Abroad advisors would respond. We used this series to start promoting the return of Study Abroad since the pandemic. Questions and answers were saved to our highlights. The photo in the background is a student's POV studying architecture at the Roman Forum in Italy.
Above are the main graphics I designed to promote the Study Abroad Fair. We created a Facebook ad campaign and boosted the post on Instagram, which gained a post reach of over 9,800. Over 400 students attended the Fair in-person, reaching pre-pandemic levels for attendance after a year of the University operating fully remote and study abroad programs being cancelled.
#TriviaTuesdays on instagram
Early on in my tenure, I noticed a lack of (and declining) user engagement on the Rutgers Global Instagram account. I noted that we had not been utilizing Instagram stories and the many features within them, which we identified as an opportunity to create new and engaging content. In order to increase user engagement and retain followers, I collaborated with our programming staff to implement #TriviaTuesday every week on Instagram stories. The trivia questions had an international and/or University focus with different themes each week and served both an educational and fun method of engagement with our audience. We also used #TriviaTuesday to promote upcoming events or global holidays. We saw a 200% increase in user reach and engagement on our Instagram stories since I started them in July 2021.
Above is an example from a special #TriviaTuesday with prizes to celebrate International Education Week at Rutgers University. The questions covered a wide range of global and multi-cultural topics such as food, landmarks, and fun facts. We also promoted our other International Education Week events before and after #TriviaTuesday on our Instagram.
@rutgersglobal on TikTok
A growing success in our social media strategy has been the Rutgers Global TikTok account. A top priority was to cultivate our presence on TikTok in order to reach more students in a dynamic and creative format. I decided to focus on student-centered content, including collaborations with students who were currently studying abroad. There were a few videos that were posted between March and June in 2020, but posting stopped until I re-initiated our outreach on TikTok upon joining the team. Since then, we grew exponentially from 24 followers and 1,061 video views to over 118 followers and over 49,000 video views in my first 6 months.
This video is one of our most successful and top-performing posts so far on TikTok since implementing the study abroad campaign working with students who are currently abroad to create content for our TikTok and Instagram.
This video is from the student involvement fair at the University, which attracts many new students to check out different clubs and activities on campus. It's an example of a highlight reel I typically make for major events, where I shoot videos on my phone and edit in TikTok.