Crossing Borders - Navigating Higher Ed Social in Canada vs USA with Sarah Wells

Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Callie Goodwin: Welcome to Confessions of the Higher Ed Social Media Manager, where we delve into the world of higher ed social media through the eyes of people behind the screens. Join us as we explore the ups and downs and everything in between when managing online presence for colleges and universities. From navigating the latest social media trends to dealing with crisis management, we'll hear firsthand accounts of what it's really like to be a higher ed social media manager.

[00:00:36] We'll sit down with masterminds behind some of the most innovative and engaging social media campaigns in the field and hear their behind the screen stories, best practices and insider tips. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out, sit back, grab your headphones, and get ready for some candid confessions and valuable insights into the world of higher ed social media.

[00:00:55] Confessions of a higher ed Social Media Manager is part of the Enroll fify podcast network. You [00:01:00] can subscribe to this podcast@enrollfify.org or wherever you get your podcast.

[00:01:19] Welcome to Confessions of a Higher Ed Social Media Manager. I'm your host, Callie, and I'm so glad that you're tuning in today. Today I'm chatting with Sarah Wells, who is the social media Communications officer at a Canadian higher ed institution, and she has worked in higher ed for the last 10 years.

[00:01:33] Welcome, Sarah. How are you 

[00:01:34] Sarah Wells: today? I'm great. Thanks for having me, Callie. I'm excited to be here. 

[00:01:38] Callie Goodwin: Absolutely. Let's kick this off, um, with an easy question. So how did you get into social media? 

[00:01:44] Sarah Wells: Well, I studied at Brock University. I studied popular culture, uh, which is kind of a weird degree. Um, but I met my mentor there who was teaching computer mediated communication.

[00:01:54] Uh, That's what it was called at the time. Today, I'm pretty sure I call it social media. So it is, [00:02:00] I largely credit getting into social media because of him and the courses I took with him. And that led me into some different educational opportunities. And then I hit right when social media was becoming a bigger thing and those were the jobs I landed outta 

[00:02:13] Callie Goodwin: school.

[00:02:15] That's so cool. So, Let's just kick it off with a deep question. What do you think is the most under-discussed part of working in social media most 

[00:02:27] Sarah Wells: under-discussed? That it is at times the best job and at times the worst job working in social media like. Especially in higher ed when you're helping students or being part of their experience, that's incredibly rewarding and it's the absolute best experience and you get to be part of such magical moments.

[00:02:49] But when something goes wrong or there's an issue, uh, that's also the place where they come and. They download every emotion [00:03:00] and you are the person who has to receive that while they're yelling at the brand. You're still the person receiving all of that. So you can go from having the best job at your institution to having probably the worst job at your institution.

[00:03:15] And I think that's probably one thing that people don't realize. They're just like, oh, you're playing on social media. That's so fun. Not when something goes wrong. When something goes wrong, it's brutal and it's a real toll on your mental health. 

[00:03:30] Callie Goodwin: Absolutely. I think that that's a hundred percent like something I would list as well.

[00:03:36] I think especially, I know that we often refer back to Covid times and like when we were in the thick of it, and that was one of those times where, We were on the front lines. We were that key communications piece for our students. And so we had to deal with a lot during that and how we, we [00:04:00] managed our students' expectations and their communication with the university, and then also just bearing the weight of a lot of that grief that their experience was not what.

[00:04:12] They thought it was gonna be. So definitely agree 

[00:04:15] Sarah Wells: on that. And it, it's really hard too that when you can relate to what their frustrations are, what they're feeling, but. Allowed to, I guess you could say, sort of thing, like when you wanna relate, but you know, you have to, you have the institutional messaging and you know, you need to follow that script and you know you need to do that, but you wanna really be like, I'm with you.

[00:04:39] Like, I completely agree, this fricking sucks. And it's really hard to be there and to, to do that. 

[00:04:47] Callie Goodwin: It's, yeah, I think I talked about this on my last episode with Liz, but. I remember sitting on my porch, it was March of 2020, late March. We had just decided [00:05:00] that we were not gonna hold commencement in May, and I was about to send out that email and I just cried because I was so upset that like our students weren't gonna have this.

[00:05:12] But I, as the institutional accounts, couldn't. Express any emotion. And I was so connected with these specific students because they were my first incoming class of first year students and I saw like to see them go through their four years and oh my gosh, I was a wreck. But online we have to be. We have to be strong and put together.

[00:05:38] But yeah, I don't think it's talked about enough of just the weight of stuff that we carry offline, that we have to shield from the internet. And one of the things that I love about the higher ed social Facebook group is that that's a place where I. People will come and just say like, I'm having a rough day.

[00:05:57] Like, this is what we're going through. And [00:06:00] they'll find encouragement or help or whatever they need. But that's a place where it's, it's on the internet, but it's off the main accounts. So it's It's like a 

[00:06:08] Sarah Wells: secret. Yeah. It's not just a space for professional development, it's a mental health support system.

[00:06:15] Callie Goodwin: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. It's, it's a safe spot for higher ed and I. One of the things I love about our industry is that people really hold that community over competition mindset. Like if you ask a question in the hiring group, but people are going to give you answers, give you tips, give you documents, give you whatever, whatever you need.

[00:06:41] We're not the admissions offices that have to kind of. Not fight for students, but like compete for students. That's the better, best word for that. We're not competing to like sell our university in that group, like we're not trying to out one up each other. But I, I love that it's a place [00:07:00] where you can fi, especially if you're a team of one or a small team, that you can find people that are.

[00:07:07] In the same boat with empathy and compassion. So if our followers are not in the higher ed social group, we'll have it linked in the show notes, but it is the most incredible Facebook community for people who work in this field. So let's move on to our next question. Do you manage a student team at 

[00:07:27] Sarah Wells: your university?

[00:07:30] I have worked with a ton of students in my time at my school. I currently have two students that I work with who are absolutely amazing and two students I work directly with and then a bunch of other students that I, that I work with indirectly, if you will. 

[00:07:44] Callie Goodwin: That's so cool. Do you have any tips or tricks for like maybe things that your students do that are helpful for you as an office?

[00:07:54] Sarah Wells: Um, Yeah. So one of the things for me is that I always try to remember [00:08:00] we're at a higher educational institution. If we're working with students, that's part of their learning experience. So it's not only about what they can do for us, but what learning experience can we provide for them. So I think the biggest thing when you're working with students is to have those conversations and understand kind of what the expectations are from both sides.

[00:08:19] Understand what it is. Helping them understand what it is you need from them, but also understanding from them what they wanna get out of the experience and what they're hoping to learn, or what they need help with, or what they need advice on. And really having that open communication and remembering that it's learning experience too.

[00:08:38] So giving them the room to. Try things to experiment. Yeah. Make sure they understand brand and the, the, the voice of your institution and things like that, but give them the room to experiment and to fail and to try different things. If you can find those opportunities, it's amazing what they can come up with.

[00:08:57] So the biggest thing for me is [00:09:00] with your students, make sure you're not just giving them orders. You're not just telling them what to do. They are part of your team. Communicate with them. Ask them for ideas. Students are the best resource if you're managing social media in a higher education institution because they know what they're looking for.

[00:09:16] They know what their classmates are looking for. They provide amazing insights. And also they grew up with social media in their hand from like day one. So they understand every new platform, what, what voice to have, what type of content to create.

[00:09:35] Yes, we are the professionals, but we still have a lot of room to learn from our students as well. So give them the room to be the expert to teach you, um, and, and leverage all that they can do. 

[00:09:50] Callie Goodwin: I cannot talk about how important that is enough. I think that students were selling the student [00:10:00] experience and like, yeah, we're selling education too, but I.

[00:10:04] A lot of students have options for their education, and so this on campus experience is really what makes each university different. And so utilizing your greatest asset, your students to tell that story in the most authentic way possible is so important, and they are on the ground, I think. So when I started my work at the university, my first university that I worked at, I was still a student at the time, but was running the main accounts and so it was very interesting time there.

[00:10:38] A lot of staff changes and department changes and stuff like that. So somehow I was given the keys and it was one of. The greatest experiences of my life, but I moved to the residence hall. I was commuting from my parents' house, but it was like a 45 minute drive and so I ended up moving onto campus and so that first like year and a half that I [00:11:00] worked and was running social, like I was living in the day-to-day of campus and I, when I moved to my apartment, I remember thinking I just lost my massive like, Asset of having that in dorm, in campus 24 7 experience.

[00:11:21] And so I recruited a team of students and I was like, okay, I, I just lost this entire perspective. I I need that back. So yeah, if people don't have a student team tap into one. Find some of your students. I always fought admissions because admissions always had the best, they found the best students because.

[00:11:42] If they needed students for, um, tours and like they trained them so well. And so sometimes I would be like, do you have any students that like maybe want a few extra hours a week? Because I knew that they had always like found the best. And we were also at very small college. So like when we were talking about admissions having like [00:12:00] 40, 50 students on their team, and yeah, they did have a lot 'cause they did, they did all the tours, all the.

[00:12:07] There had a few admissions counselors, but like way more students. Um, then our school only had like 400 residential students to begin with, so they had a massive chunk of them over in the admissions office. So yeah, we loved bringing students in the office and just, it also remembered it helped us to connect with who we were.

[00:12:29] Dealing with on a daily basis. So big, big advocate for student workers and finding different ways to include them in your office, but also in your content, and then getting their perspective. So we're gonna go back to some comments talking about managing social from a university perspective. Do you have any like funniest or most memorable, like comments or interactions that you've received on post?

[00:12:56] Sarah Wells: So if you come across me on social, my [00:13:00] handle often involves the word sassy. So I think my most memorable comment, one day we had a student, it was kind of in that weird time between summer and fall. And if you're like my school, like they turn off the AC at some point because it's like nice enough outside, but it's not cold enough for heat.

[00:13:20] Like we were in that period, but apparently some of the classrooms were getting like super warm and students were complaining. So I thought, okay, let's explain. They're like, can you turn up the ac? So I tried to like be really nice and explain that, Hey, we're actually at this point, the heat's not on yet.

[00:13:40] They told us to turn down the heat. I said, actually, the heat's not on yet. We're at the point where this happens. And I explained the process and they told me to turn down the sash and turn up the ac

[00:13:56] Callie Goodwin: and I was like, I 

[00:13:57] Sarah Wells: legit was not being sassy this time. There are times [00:14:00] when I've certainly wanted to be, but I.

[00:14:06] Callie Goodwin: So that is 

[00:14:07] Sarah Wells: probably most memorable because anytime someone's like, come up with an alliteration for your name, everyone, like, I'm a Sarah, so everyone's like super and whatever, and I was always like, sassy, I'm sassy. That's what I'm, so, it was hilarious that they said that. So that is probably my most memorable thing.

[00:14:24] I will never forget. Then I felt I really owned my, my, my nickname. 

[00:14:30] Callie Goodwin: That's hilarious. I love that. Student clap backs are some of the funniest things I have read. I love them. I love the creativity. Sometimes I'm like, Ooh, I definitely just got roasted. But like props to you for like. Pulling that off, so well, yeah.

[00:14:49] Um, or so on brand. I'm like, I can't be mad. Like that was, that was too good. Like you just how 

[00:14:56] Sarah Wells: it's like, okay. I have to give you this one. I'm sorry. 

[00:14:59] Callie Goodwin: Yeah. [00:15:00] So as a university in Canada, I am interested to know like, are there certain trends that you see on us? Accounts that like you can't pull off on Canadian accounts or are there Canadian trends that you can or can't do for your accounts?

[00:15:19] We're not diving deep into like school specific, but just like perspective on trends. Well, one of 

[00:15:27] Sarah Wells: the things that I can't get into, so like football is huge in the states, right? I am at a Canadian college and we don't have football. Like that is just not a thing. And actually as a whole, like varsity athletics isn't as like huge as it is at American schools or even Canadian universities.

[00:15:49] Like varsity is huge and it just doesn't, doesn't get the, the hype.[00:16:00] 

[00:16:03] Callie Goodwin: Yeah, both schools that I worked at did not have football teams, so I, I often forget that that is a very large part of bigger universities. I mean, the school down the street from where I live has a massive football program and that like takes over our town during the fall, like everything is based off of their football season.

[00:16:24] And so that is one of the things about smaller universities is like we don't have. That influence. But I wonder sometimes, like there's pros and cons with having massive football or athletics in general and how that it gives you content for your main accounts, but it also like is almost a full separate entity from main social.

[00:16:47] Sarah Wells: And one thing that we are able to do that a lot of US schools aren't able to more, we still have TikTok. That's still part of our, that's still part of our repertoire. So that's one thing that we can do [00:17:00] that some of you 

[00:17:00] Callie Goodwin: down south can't. Yeah, there's, I. Oh, TikTok. I am pretty sure most followers know how much I love TikTok.

[00:17:09] I think our listeners also know that I work for zmi, which is the social media app for high schoolers going to college to create community. And so I get to, I get to log into the Zmi account and my. Favorite thing to do is to go through and type in like acceptance letters, um, and look at those hashtags and comment on students' videos and not like selling the platform, just like congratulations on getting into that school.

[00:17:34] 'cause like we work with so many different schools and there's just sheer joy and that kind of like U G C content. We don't necessarily get, we definitely don't get it on Facebook. We sometimes get it on Instagram, but, TikTok is where it's living right now. And so that 

[00:17:51] Sarah Wells: used to be my favorite thing about Twitter when I started in 2015, like February 1st is our, our day.

[00:17:58] Like that, or was [00:18:00] our day, that was the day that offers typically started to go out for a lot of our programs and like Twitter used to like blow up, we had like. Hundreds of mentions just insane. And it was such good engagement. It was like in my calendar, okay, Feb, first we gotta do these messages and we gotta do this and we gotta reach and we gotta be prepared for this.

[00:18:17] And like I blocked my calendar for everything and I haven't been able to replicate that since like 2018 on any other platform. 

[00:18:30] Callie Goodwin: It's interesting to see like what. Like the ebb and flow of social, like what takes off and what doesn't, which leads into another question is like, what is your favorite platform at the moment, both personally and professionally?

[00:18:46] Sarah Wells: Pers personally and professionally. I'm gonna say personally, it's probably Reddit. Professionally, it may actually be Reddit. Like I, I like Reddit. 

[00:18:56] Callie Goodwin: Ooh, I don't do enough on Reddit. [00:19:00] I wish I did. I need to like dig into that more. I. So 

[00:19:06] Sarah Wells: when you're thinking social, like what place do I still enjoy being in?

[00:19:09] What place do I still like being in? And there's some unique opportunities on Reddit. I enjoy it. And I probably shouldn't be saying this out loud because it's kind of like our secret weapon. 'cause most of higher ed isn't there yet. 

[00:19:21] Callie Goodwin: That is also true. There's so much. I think one of the things about higher ed and, and Reddit, Specifically as I know that one of our team members as he meet, like has alerts mentioned or like alerts for different things on Reddit.

[00:19:36] And also he'll go into like the application, like college application Reddits and answer questions for students or give them resources. And he's again, not selling our platform at all. He is literally just. Being a higher ed resource and like steering people to where they need because so many questions get asked on Reddit.

[00:19:57] Sarah Wells: So many, and like [00:20:00] we, we own our, our sub and we have a brand account on Reddit. Oh, nice. Um, but there is a general one for our region that people go in and ask questions, and they ask questions all the time about this school versus at school, or what do I need to know about this, the application process, or what do I need to know about this process or that process.

[00:20:19] And I'm in there, I'm answering anything. 'cause I'm like, worst comes to worst. I'm like, I'm trying to be helpful, but hey, if somebody sees me being helpful and goes, I like the way that school's supporting people. Hey, happy coincidence. 

[00:20:33] Callie Goodwin: I love that. That might be one of like the slept on hidden gems that higher ed doesn't, doesn't find.

[00:20:42] Often and utilize enough. 

[00:20:45] Sarah Wells: I, I recently got asked, uh, by someone who does Reddit really well. I was like, us. No, but who does Reddit really well? Us but who's the leader? Us and, oh, [00:21:00] we've, it's been part of our strategy for probably four or five years now. 

[00:21:04] Callie Goodwin: Interesting. I wonder how many people are gonna take that and now go and.

[00:21:08] Start checking Reddit now. That would be interesting. Have you gotten on thread yet? 

[00:21:14] Sarah Wells: Oh, yeah. We may have had like the best starting thread ever. Yeah. We actually, a few years ago, one of our design looks was we threaded our logo. Like have you ever seen thread art with the nails and the yarn and that? Yeah, we, we created our logo out of that.

[00:21:35] Callie Goodwin: That's 

[00:21:35] Sarah Wells: amazing. So I said, Hey, we've been ready for threads for years and posted a picture. 

[00:21:42] Callie Goodwin: That's incredible. I, oh my gosh. Man, like, how do you top that? It, it was perfect. It was the 

[00:21:50] Sarah Wells: perfect thing. And, and it's funny, like I have a friend at another institution and she's waiting for a meeting, um, to see if they're gonna use threads.

[00:21:58] And like day one, I was on [00:22:00] there and I was like telling my srss, I'm like, you have an Instagram account? Go claim your handle. Like make sure you have it. Like you don't post anything yet. That's cool, but get your handle sort of thing. Like, and that was day one and I love that I'm able to do that. Now I'm trying to figure out how we use it.

[00:22:13] That's a slow process. 

[00:22:15] Callie Goodwin: Yeah. I think it's interesting right now because I was trying to explain threads to somebody the other day, and my best explanation is like the brands not necessarily higher ed, I would say like general brands that are on threads right now. It's a mixture of just like unhinged content like.

[00:22:37] It almost feels like you gave social media managers a place to go have fun without the like corporate restrictions and they're just like brand. I'm thinking about specifically Sonic, which is a drive-in restaurant in the us. Sonic has been. Like unhinged over there. I saw the airports like doing their little [00:23:00] round robin the other day of like checking in, like checking in for flights and I was cracking up at that.

[00:23:05] But like it is one of those where you have a little bit more freedom, kind of like TikTok, but in written form where it's not heavily regulated yet and like all the early adopters are on there. And so it's, it's interesting to see. 

[00:23:19] Sarah Wells: I love that you said like not many people are there yet and I love the fact that our threads account outgrew our TikTok account in 72 hours.

[00:23:28] Callie Goodwin: Oh. I mean, okay, let me rephrase. There are a lot of people there. I think there's what they say, a hundred million people signed up. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Something crazy, but like I think people signed up and then backed off. Yeah. They 

[00:23:39] Sarah Wells: sitting, I'm waiting to see what's 

[00:23:41] Callie Goodwin: happening. I'm gonna bring this up now, uh, mainly so you and all of our listeners can hold me accountable on this, but I wanna do another mascot collab like we did last year, but it was a little chaotic.

[00:23:54] I was in a little bit of chaos at that time in my personal life and [00:24:00] work life, and so it ended up not being as organized as I would've liked it. It was very, a very chaotic process when you bring like. 18 schools together from around the world, and then trying to get people to submit the right thing and then keeping track of the 500 different ways people were sending me their content.

[00:24:19] Pretty sure we left people out of that video by the end. And then there was one school where they, I guess, changed names between the time they submitted it and the time that we posted it. And I'm just like, what? What? So is 

[00:24:34] Sarah Wells: there a way to do it through one of the platforms? So it's like the first piece person posts and then they, they stitch in the sex per second person and then the third person and like we could just stitch it and like you tag a school to join.

[00:24:46] Callie Goodwin: Yeah, I think you can, I mean, you could do that on reels. I think you can like remix it, stitch it. 'cause I would say TikTok, but I, I guess we could try it on both and see which dir like if you're on, if you're a TikTok school, then I. [00:25:00] Then, yeah. But if you, if you're not allowed on TikTok at your university, then you could do Instagram.

[00:25:04] But I feel like that would be a fun, I'd maybe like passing something like, um, along, like the previous one we did like the boom, boom, swipe boom, boom, swipe. And so yeah, doing something where we're, oh, at Christmas time we need to do another one that's like the, pass this to Kevin, pass this to Kevin. And then passing it back.

[00:25:28] How funny would that be with like all these different mascots? The 

[00:25:31] Sarah Wells: other thing I was just thinking like, could we do it somehow and do it like either kinda like Uno, where you have to have passed it to a mascot who's either the same animal or the same color. 

[00:25:43] Callie Goodwin: That's so smart. Like something like that.

[00:25:47] Sarah Wells: That would so fun because I was just thinking like there's a ton of birds. Uh, Like there's a ton of like, you could do that and then there's a whole bunch of like random colors for all these things. So you could [00:26:00] do colors or. 

[00:26:02] Callie Goodwin: That's smart. I don't know. We'll, we'll think this through and post it and so we'll see if we can come back into the show notes later and like post a link to this once we make it happen, if people are listening to this like six months, a year from now and we're like, I wonder what happened with that idea, but now there's two of us on it, so we have to make it happen.

[00:26:20] It's not just living in my little chaotic brain. We've got accountability with our audience. 

[00:26:26] Sarah Wells: I, I'll get Canada on board, 

[00:26:29] Callie Goodwin: you'll. We'll unite done. So we're gonna run through our last couple questions, um, as we wrap up the episode. It's been so fun. So gonna jump back in a little serious again, but what is a moment that you wish you could have pulled back the curtains and let people see behind the screen?

[00:26:49] Oh yeah, 

[00:26:52] Sarah Wells: something.

[00:26:57] Covid, but like there's other things that can [00:27:00] go wrong if you're an institution. There can be faculty issues, there can be staff issues, there can be things on campus that happen. Like every time one of those things happens and like we get the like visceral gut reaction of students and they don't realize.

[00:27:21] What's happening behind the scenes, like all the people that are involved, what the chain is that we go through, what the thought process is, we go through what we're actually feeling when we're having to communicate these various things, like those moments. Because I think when we're a brand, it's easy to like go after the brand, but you forget that there's actual people behind there.

[00:27:44] So like those moments. And it's people who often care about you and who are feeling the same things that you are and who are struggling the same way you are. Like, I think those moments are the moments where I'd like to be like, Hey, [00:28:00] like we get it. We understand 

[00:28:04] Callie Goodwin: where people too. It goes back to something we talked about earlier of that we often feel.

[00:28:11] Pretty heavy feelings on the side of the computer screen and people that are on the other side of the accounts, usually they vent and they, they're hurting or they're upset, or they're mad, or they're whatever. We always love the excited and happy moments, like we'll definitely share in that too, but when we think about those like more negative emotions like.

[00:28:33] I think a lot of people think that if they get mad at the online accounts, like the administration or people higher up are gonna see that, feel that, hear that, and I. It's not, they're not the ones that are checking the dms or the comments. Most of the time they're not seeing any of that. And then I've worked for a couple of different presidents in my time in higher ed that weren't even on social media and 

[00:28:57] Sarah Wells: the bizarre assumption sometimes that it's the [00:29:00] president that's behind that account.

[00:29:01] Yeah. 

[00:29:02] Callie Goodwin: I'm like, you do realize that is. We are not the same person. No, it's not happening. Not even close. And I'm not gonna take your comments and go take it to him either. Yeah. Like if it's an issue, then yeah, we'll bring it up with the people that we need to bring it up with the right people. Exactly. But that's usually not, he's not the right person.

[00:29:19] No, it's usually not the president. So I definitely think that's interesting. What is the most important lesson that you've learned over your career? Or like what is something you would. Give to somebody new to the field.

[00:29:38] Advocating 

[00:29:39] Sarah Wells: for yourself and determining your own boundaries. I think that while to learn and, and to establish. I give a lot of credit. Actually, I mentioned before that I met Tony at PSE Web. P S e Web is post-secondary education, web and digital conference in Canada for all of Canadian higher [00:30:00] ed's, digital and web.

[00:30:02] And I connected with that group not long after I started and for years I knew the person who started, she was like cum.

[00:30:15] It's worthwhile. That'd be helpful to anyone. Finally, about five years in, I made it my goal to speak at that conference and I just, I printed, I'm like, I don't know if this is gonna hit. Like I'm just sharing what I do. I don't know if it's of any value. Like I assume this is what people are doing and this isn't new or unique.

[00:30:31] And I presented and the reaction blew me away. Like people are like, oh my goodness, this is such a good idea. Why aren't we doing this? And like the comments were unreal. And it took that moment with my peers in higher ed giving me that feedback that I realized, wait, no, I'm really freaking good at what I do, and I need to, like, I'm not failing when I need help.

[00:30:57] I need to go, Nope. I'm good at what I [00:31:00] do. I've done this. I need more help. I need more support. I need, and advocating for yourself and asking for help. Pushing in the right way for what's needed. And it's, I think that piece, I think in social media, we all, a lot of us have the, we all have the kind of imposter syndrome, like social media's still fairly new and it's like, whoa, we didn't go to school for it.

[00:31:29] Like, oh, we're just kind of making it up as we go along. That's what we feel like, but we're not. We were the first generation, we started social. We were the ones that were first there when Facebook became a thing, like we were the ones, the original ones there. We grew up with social. We didn't, we weren't born into it.

[00:31:52] We grew up with it and we undervalued that experience a lot of the time. So, [00:32:00] That lived experience. And I think even the students coming up now who are in their twenties, yeah, they were born into social, but like most of their social experience has been learned outside of academics. And how often do we only give value to the things that we learn in a classroom.

[00:32:18] So it's that piece of having confidence in what we know and valuing or learn things both in the classroom and outside of it. And having confidence in that and being willing to advocate for that and say, no, I do know what I'm talking about. I do know what I need. So that piece I think is the important thing that for me, when I'm training or working with students, it's.

[00:32:47] I want an open communication environment. I want you to communicate what you need, what you need from me, what you need for yourself, that piece, and to be willing to giving them a safe space to learn how to have those [00:33:00] uncomfortable or hard conversations. Because we often just go, oh, I shouldn't do that.

[00:33:05] That makes me look weak or makes me look whatever. But figuring out how to have those conversations and that it's okay to ask for help, it's okay to advocate for yourself. It's okay to be confident in what you do those things, because I think that's, that's the struggle a lot of us in social media face.

[00:33:25] It's that imposter syndrome that we don't really know what 

[00:33:29] Callie Goodwin: we're doing. I think you hit the nail on the head when you talked about how we, most of us didn't go to school for anything social media related. Sometimes it's marketing, sometimes it's. Communications. I mean, I have a degree in early childhood and a degree, degree in social work.

[00:33:44] Like it's not, that definitely wasn't my path, but I, I think if you ask me what I've struggled with working in social media the most, it's always been imposter syndrome. And I think we all work at different size. [00:34:00] Schools. We work at different size with different size teams, like a, a team that has five or six people on it, or a dedicated graphics person or a dedicated video photo person, uh, versus someone who's trying to manage it all like.

[00:34:16] Those are very much different expectations, but our school leadership usually doesn't recognize like how many different variables there are in there, um, and how much that we're asking. I'm gonna go specifically with like team of one people, um, how much we're asking them to do. We're asking them to do social listening, content creation, writing photo, video, stay on top of the trends across eight different platforms, et cetera.

[00:34:43] So like, The fact that we're functioning and like doing our jobs at all, a lot of times is proof that like we are making it. And that when you see other schools that look a little bit more put together or people that seem like they have it all [00:35:00] together, the reality is I'm pretty sure if we pulled a group of the higher ed, like people that work in higher ed social, almost every single one of them would say they have imposter syndrome in some form or like capacity because it.

[00:35:11] I, I feel that way consistently. Think 

[00:35:15] Sarah Wells: too about the way people talk about social, often the term just social. It's just social. Like we're often minimized in what our contributions are to a team or to an environment as just social or, oh, she just plays on Facebook all day. Or like those types of things, like those types of things get said to us all the time.

[00:35:39] That undermine. We do, and how do you not have imposter syndrome when that's the language that is inherent to our work in a lot of ways. How do we get beyond that? Part of how we get beyond that is groups like Higher Ed Social and P SS E Web where we talk and support each other and go, no, [00:36:00] legit, like you're doing it.

[00:36:01] Like what you're doing is really great, and building that community of support and empowerment. Because we are still facing those words in the community around us. 

[00:36:15] Callie Goodwin: Well, I think it's also important to note that like we are also working with academics who are usually the top in their fields. Like they have terminal degrees, like they have everything that they can get in their, in their field.

[00:36:30] So if you're working with like a chemist or someone who is. Has their PhD in like British literature from a very specific time period. Like they have studied this for so long and they've got the credentials. Like sometimes I think they won't admit it, but like a lot of academics downplay social because yeah, there's not degrees that we've spent years pursuing a piece of paper in a classroom, [00:37:00] but we have spent years with lived experience.

[00:37:04] Fighting a whole different battle than they are. We may not be writing papers, but we are fighting the comments and trying to stay, like what I always joke when classes tell me, or I'm teaching a social media class at the university that I used to work at, and they're like, okay, what books do you want?

[00:37:20] And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We, nope, 

[00:37:24] Sarah Wells: nope, nope. Anything ideas. 

[00:37:27] Callie Goodwin: Exactly, exactly. Uh, because pretty much if the book is written, It's gonna be outdated by the time it's 

[00:37:33] Sarah Wells: printed. Yeah. The other thing, when you're, when you're talking about the chemist or the British literature or whatever, part of that's about access to learn those things.

[00:37:44] At that level, it is a select few who have the money, the intelligence, the whatever. It's an elite or smaller group. Social media is more of a grassroot. [00:38:00] Accessible piece that everyone has access to, and as soon as everyone has, has access to it, it's normal. It's part of culture. It's not part of the upper echelon or whatever.

[00:38:14] It's. For the masses, which in a lot of cases is for the lower class, if you will. And it's that, that aspect of it. So everyone's like, well, I can do that. I have a Facebook page, I can do that. And it's that piece that challenges what we do too, because it is accessible to everyone. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't like looking back over social media.

[00:38:41] I don't think building community has changed a lot over the years. I think there are always gonna be those fundamental foundational pieces that go towards building an online community. 

[00:38:53] Callie Goodwin: Yeah. Where the community lives may change. Yes. But building community itself doesn't. Yes, exactly. [00:39:00] It may be on a different platform.

[00:39:01] It may look a little bit different on TikTok than it maybe does in a Facebook group or on Threads or LinkedIn or whatever, whatever the platform, but whatever comes next, yeah, whatever, whatever exists. But still the foundations of community and people, that's what people are craving. Our world may be going.

[00:39:22] It's become fully digital, but people still need other people and need community, and so that's one of those like super important parts of our job is that not only are we pushing out information on behalf of our schools, we're also building that online community so that once they're off campus and they've graduated, they still have a place to come back to online, even if they're.

[00:39:46] Hundreds of miles away. 

[00:39:48] Sarah Wells: So that old thing that I say all the time, social media is inherently social. Hmm. If you lose that social aspect and you don't build the communities and support the [00:40:00] communities and engage with people, yes. It's not social media, it's 

[00:40:05] Callie Goodwin: just another billboard. Nice. Well, let's, let's wrap up with our final question.

[00:40:14] My favorite one to ask on the podcast. What is your confession? What is something you've done as a social media manager that someone probably wouldn't expect? 

[00:40:26] Sarah Wells: So the thing that most shocks most people is that my personal social media is a complete disaster. Like my social media has died to death. My own social, like that's probably the biggest thing when you manage social media for a brand.

[00:40:44] By the end of the day, you're like, I don't wanna touch it. And like my Twitter comes alive for one week in July every year for the P s E web conference, or when I have an issue with a brand and I need to yell at them. That's about when my [00:41:00] Twitter accounts are active. My personal Instagram, if there are two posts on my Instagram account each year, it's a miracle.

[00:41:07] My Facebook page, more scrolling than posting. LinkedIn has probably actually been the most. Active as I update, like micro credentials and things I've taken. But yeah, no, my, I spend a ton of time on social, but I don't post a lot. And it's, it's so funny. We, we were at a conference last week and the people I were with, they were like tweeting all the time and they were posting and I was like, I forgot to take a picture of that.

[00:41:35] I forgot to do, like when I turn off work social, it's just like, that leaves me, it's gone. Mm-hmm. 

[00:41:43] Callie Goodwin: Yes, I concur. I also, my personal social is a disaster, not TikTok. That one is that one. That one's thriving. 'cause that one's where all my small business energy goes. But like, yeah, trying to manage my [00:42:00] own personal accounts at this point, like, It's so minimal because I'm, I spend so much time doing other things that it's not for lack of being on social, it's just lack of having like, The time or energy to figure out what I want to post.

[00:42:16] And so if I post every like couple weeks on my Facebook is like a life update. Yeah. Just for like all of my mom's. I'm still mom's friends. I'm still here. Yeah. I'm still alive. I still exist. Like I'm still kicking away, but like. If you wanna find me, you're gonna find me over on TikTok, probably TikTok live packing orders or building new creations or whatever.

[00:42:38] And then I've had the added spin of that in addition to all the meta apps and TikTok and LinkedIn and all that. I'm also throwing in Zmi, and so I'm actually, so. As someone like the app, the Zmi app is meant for high school students going into college, and so the amount of time I spent in other [00:43:00] colleges group chats on zmi, just seeing what students are talking about is fas like.

[00:43:04] It's fascinating me like when you put a bunch of students in a group chat and to see what they say. The other day I might have posted this on social. Talking about it, but there was a random Miley Cyrus song like thread in one of the college group chats where they literally would just like line by line started like typing slash singing this Miley Cyrus song.

[00:43:27] And I was just like, what is hap, like how did this come to be? Like, it was such a fun, like it just, it takes me back to like OG Twitter in a way slash like Facebook group. But modernized. And so it, it sounds like our discord. Oh yeah. Very much probably. Yeah. Do y'all utilize is discord 

[00:43:51] Sarah Wells: for your university?

[00:43:51] We do. Yeah. And I think from a profe, my confession from a, uh, that people would be surprised about is what socials we use and put effort [00:44:00] behind because like everyone's got the big four, if you will, the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn. But like I said, we have a strategy for Reddit. We have a strategy for Discord.

[00:44:09] We have a strategy for Spotify, like we leverage some of the. Fringe platforms as part of our strategy, um, which I think surprises a lot of people when all a sudden I'm like, oh.

[00:44:31] Oh, oh my goodness. We have one of the largest Giy libraries and some of the most used GIF on Giy, like every time, like breaking news. Have you seen the Red Breaking News banner? Yeah, that's 

[00:44:43] our, 

[00:44:43] Callie Goodwin: is it yours? That's ours. Yep. Um, are y'all pulling a, a, university of Florida? Because UF also, um, made some of the most like generic gifts.

[00:44:57] They kill it at their little [00:45:00] gator gifts. But like the sunshine, the prominent sunshine gifts is the University of Florida's. 

[00:45:07] Sarah Wells: We have some generic ones like we, we have a lot of branded ones, but we also have like generic ones of like ahead exploding, which is great for students when they're studying. We have like sports equipment, so when people are playing sports, like that's in there, we have.

[00:45:24] Because we, we have a, a school of dental hygiene. We have like toothbrushes and teeth and like, things like that. We have headphones because we are known as Canada's taught music school. So we have a headphones and a microphone. We have like so many different things that are in there. Even like we have like download buttons or like arrows or things like that that people use Commonly it.

[00:45:54] There, there is a professional sports team who has a very similar name to us. Um, they've [00:46:00] used some of our gifts sometimes too. 

[00:46:03] Callie Goodwin: I love that. I love that so much. Okay, so the question is, how many, how many gift views do you have? Uh, 

[00:46:12] Sarah Wells: 2.8 billion.

[00:46:18] We have 781 gif uploads and 2.8 billion views. Yeah. 

[00:46:25] Callie Goodwin: Dang, that's billion. Oh my gosh. Okay. So one of the schools that I used to work at this is just, if you're listening and you've thought about getting on Giphy, like, do it. It's, they're not terribly hard to make and they're so fun. But I, we have 16 gifts uploaded and it has 6.2 million views, and so that's over the last two years.

[00:46:51] It is actually probably just hitting that two year mark and so. For a school that has like less than a thousand students. Yeah. To have 6.2 million, which is [00:47:00] nowhere near your two something billion. Oh my gosh. 

[00:47:05] Sarah Wells: Well, it was, it was funny when, when I started asking for these, I was like, we need these, and I have a, a team that I work with, a creative team that I work with.

[00:47:14] And I do not have the skills to make gifts myself yet. And I was like, I need these. And I'm like, well, that's not really, they didn't quite understand. And then I showed them what I was looking for. They're like, oh, we can do that. So I now have a spread, like a shared spreadsheet with them. And anytime I come up with new ideas, I put that in there.

[00:47:28] And when they have time, I. They create more for me, and like I said, we're up to 781 gifts. 

[00:47:34] Callie Goodwin: Oh, I love that so much. We are at our time. And so Sarah, I just wanna say thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today and for talking all the fun social media stuff. I think this is the first podcast we've talked about like Reddit and Discord and Giy and stuff.

[00:47:49] So I love that we ended on that note and that we talked about imposter syndrome. I feel like that's so important as well to let others know that we are not. In feeling that, [00:48:00] because that is unfortunately a very. Prominent feeling in higher ed, higher social, am mere grace. It's something that I feel like a lot of people don't talk about, but that a lot of people feel.

[00:48:13] And so if you're out there and you're feeling that level of imposter syndrome, know that you're not alone and that, um, there's an entire community here to support you and that. You're killing it. You're doing your job, you're doing great, you're representing your school, and just keep moving forward. So thank you Sarah, so much for joining, and thank you to our audience for listening, and I hope you all have a 

[00:48:38] Sarah Wells: great day.

[00:48:39] Thanks so much for having me.

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