Let's Talk UNLV

0:00:00
Alright, welcome to another segment of Let's Talk UNLV on KUNV with co-host Keith and Renee. Renee, what did you do during this great weekend, long weekend?

0:00:17
Well, before we go back there, I need to talk about the Super Bowl. Our team won!

0:00:23
That's right!

0:00:24
Yeah, the Rams! All that positive energy, we needed all of it right?

0:00:28
We needed it all.

0:00:29
I was worried.

0:00:30
Were you worried?

0:00:31
I just got my voice back recently. I was yelling, screaming. I was stressed out. I was probably rude to my guests, but the outcome was worth it though.

0:00:41
It was and I was not in LA, but I was there for the divisional meeting and oh man, I can just only imagine and my mother's still in Los Angeles. She just said they were just partying and having a good time and just a great win for Los Angeles and Englewood.

0:00:59
A great game. I think it was a great conclusion to just an incredible playoff.

0:01:05
Absolutely.

0:01:06
All the games were close, competitive down to the last play. So Super Bowl sort of capped it off. But I was extremely pleased with the outcome.

0:01:14
Yeah. So one time that we agree, right?

0:01:16
The one time, the one time.

0:01:18
No, but it's for my weekend. It was pretty, pretty chill laid back. You know, the, the manicure, the pedicure kind of thing. Hey, hold on.

0:01:25
Barbershop, you know, skydiving and go-karting and. Well, you know, I'm a big believer that, you know, if you look good, you feel good.

0:01:33
So, all right. All right. What about you?

0:01:35
Well, I had a fender bender. Oh, so I had just gotten a little project car and had a fender bender. And so I've been trying to look into investigate research and getting it repaired. And I've been joining all these social media forums and not knowing what I'm doing. And so so I've just been on YouTube incredibly long. I didn't realize there was that much content out there on social media, YouTube and all these other platforms. So, but it's been very educational.

0:02:06
Well, I'm glad you were not hurt and no one in your family.

0:02:08
So yeah, I was just, it was a parking lot. I was in the parking lot. I only go in like 10, 15 miles an hour. I was just more so upset that I'm like, I just got this car and boom. So it set me back. But any who, but Hey, you know what? I'm excited to have Katie Griffin, who's a social media strategist for you. You know what? I'm glad to have Katie Griffin, social media strategist for University Marketing Communications with us today. And I'm excited that I'm going to learn a little bit about social media because I am social media illiterate. So, Katie, we'll start you off with a softball question. Could you share a little bit about yourself and just how you got to UNLV in this position?

0:02:55
So I started at UNLV about six years ago. I came here from the Midwest. I grew up in Iowa and went to school at Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minnesota. Got my degree in journalism, and then I took my first kind of grown up job at South Dakota State University where I worked on the web team. And then from there, my role kind of evolved into social media management. And that was at a very strange time in social media when things were not as, social media was not embraced at that point the way it is now. It was like back in the day when businesses didn't have Facebook pages. You had to kind of friend a business and that's how you connected with them. So I kind of got to be part of growing their social media somewhat from the beginning. And then when a position opened up at UNLV as the social media strategist, I was really excited for that opportunity to move out of the Midwest and come somewhere new and do something really fun for UNLV. So that's my roundabout way of getting here. Now I always have to ask this

0:04:15
question. Whenever someone says they're from the Midwest, I'm from the Midwest Missouri, and I always do the small town challenge. I don't know if it's appropriate or relevant, but the town you grew up in, what was the population?

0:04:27
Oh, when I was growing up, I think it was between like three and 5,000, yeah.

0:04:34
All right, I'm like 50 in one, so I've only lost this one. So my town, where I grew up in, it was 306.

0:04:42
Wow, wow.

0:04:44
And then we bust to the big town, where there were 5,000 for school, but. Oh, that was a big town, 5,000, wow.

0:04:49
That was a big town.

0:04:51
Wow.

0:04:52
Yeah.

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All right.

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We'll get back to what we're supposed to be doing now.

0:04:55
My area where I grew up, you were like the big town that everybody came to.

0:05:00
Renee is giving me that sort of big sibling look like, come on, man.

0:05:07
So, Katie, tell me, what is the difference between a social media manager. You said in one of your roles, you did social media management. Are they the same? Are they different? You know, tell us more.

0:05:22
Oh, sure.

0:05:23
I think they're pretty similar. I think every organization may just have different naming conventions for how they organize those roles. But typically, I would say a strategist or a manager or a coordinator, anywhere in that level is somebody who's probably responsible for a brand or organization's day-to-day social media posting. So they would, and pretty much what I do is kind of create content calendars, decide what content we're gonna post about on social media. And then I work with a really amazing team in our marketing office to help kind of create the visuals and make the stories and then get it posted on social media.

0:06:11
So when you think of the UNLV brand, what comes to mind? What are some of those, I guess, adjectives or words that is synonymous with the kind of brand that you work to create for UNLV with your team?

0:06:24
That's a great question. We've spent a lot of time talking about this. I think a lot of the words that we use are reflective of how UNLV is still relatively young in the world of universities. We're still kind of charting our own path. So we say, you know, we're unconventional and we're, you know, we're funky and quirky and we're, you know, we're innovative, energetic, like, these are the these are the feelings that really, we think define UNLV in terms of, in terms of how we want to describe it and how we want to showcase content. And of course, I can't I can't mention that without diversity, either. That's a huge part of our brand is something that we're always trying to reflect in everything that we do.

0:07:13
And then, Katie, could you maybe take a couple steps back and just sort of maybe just orient us and the listeners in terms of sort of how do you get your arms around social media? If you had to define it or what platforms fall within social media. I think all of that for us starts

0:07:31
with defining our audience. We really want to make sure that we're focused in our social media efforts and very targeted in who we're reaching on social media. And so since social media is so big for so many different types of people, our focus for UNL, these main social media, share information about UNLV, and that kind of involves not only talking to our current students, but finding ways to reach prospective students and students who may be interested in pursuing their education at UNLV. So we do a lot of highlighting what our students are up to so people can kind of see what their future is at UNLV. So that's kind of a big bucket for us. And then the other kind of side of it is because UNLV is so involved in the community, we want to make sure that our community stakeholders are up-to-date with UNLV news. So that defines a lot of what we do as well as alumni. We want to make sure everybody is kind of connected to UNLV and is able to stay up to date with what's happening here.

0:08:58
And so with UNLV being so diverse, how are you connecting that message with social media and what are the stories and or highlights that really resonate with prospective students in the community around diversity?

0:09:15
So a lot of it is just showcasing current students and all of the amazing things that they can do at UNLV, what opportunities are available, and then that way prospective students can kind of see what they can come to UNLV and accomplish too. I would say, a recent example I think is the Minority Serving Institution Student Council, who is doing so much great work on campus. And last fall, we were able to put together a social media series featuring some of the student leaders on the council, talking about their experiences and the kind of changes that they're trying to make happen at UNLV to better support their students. So I think that's a really good example of the kind of stories that we want to tell on social media that are inspiring and that just showcase that amazing work these student groups are doing.

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And then what all different platforms are you using to sort of execute this targeted strategy to, you know, existing students showcasing what they're doing on campus to prospective students, alumni and community stakeholders?

0:10:28
Oh, sure.

0:10:28
That's a great question. I think I was supposed to answer that earlier. And I missed it.

0:10:35
You do like me.

0:10:36
We blame everything on Renee.

0:10:38
No, no, all me, all me. We definitely have a big focus on Instagram. That's a very popular platform with our audience, especially the current student audience, we really, where we see probably most of our engagement. We also manage presences on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. And I would say what we're maybe most excited to share is that we're just branching out into TikTok. This semester, we really have got up and running with a new TikTok program where we have student content creators basically in our office and they coordinate with units across campus and creating content. And it's really kind of up to them in a lot of ways what we showcase and how we highlight UNLV on TikTok. And we've kind of given them some general, you know, buckets of things that we want featured and they go out and they make it happen and really fun and creative and ways that are way over my head for how they do it. But it's really cool to see these students kind of take charge of this new platform that everybody is really excited about and make some

0:11:53
really cool videos. So Katie, why do you think TikTok has taken off such a blast. Why is that the emerging, I guess, platform?

0:12:06
I think there's a lot of, probably a lot of reasons why. I know a lot of people think a big part of TikTok taking off was the pandemic. And I think at that point, TikTok was already really growing and it seems like every year we're hearing new highlights about how they've reached just a crazy amount of daily active users. But in 2020 when everybody had to go home and they were looking for ways to connect, TikTok kind of naturally filled that need in a lot of ways. And so now we kind of have this whole generation of kids who kind of are growing up with it and they've incorporated it into their daily lives and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger as more people discover it and they discover how fun it is and how informative it can be and find ways to just make cool videos and content. It's really interesting to me to see as I kind of like look at, you know, people in my life who are younger than me, how they're starting to like think about their life in terms of, it's a little weird, but they think about their lives in kind of terms of the videos that they can create and the highlights that they can use to like remember the experiences that they're having. So I think, I think those generations are kind of shifting toward that platform just because of how easy it is to use and how they can incorporate it into their daily life.

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Now, is there a relationship or similarity between Snapchat and TikTok in terms of the features or the videos, footage, how it's posted?

0:14:00
I really see Snapchat as kind of more of a direct messaging platform now. TikTok has so much trending, kind of like more public video content. And Snapchat, I think, is really defined by someone's friend group and kind of sharing more of the personalized content or maybe doing a little bit more day-to-day messaging back and forth. Whereas TikTok, you're kind of creating something bigger and something more public and participating in those trends is like your way of making your mark on something that's happening.

0:14:40
And I know with TikTok, I think about the recent commercial where they show, you have to see it, where they like, I'm doing it, Renee's looking at me like move on. You ever seen the commercial where they flip the hands and they give you the look?

0:14:56
No.

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And Allen Iverson is one of the people and Tyloo, see?

0:15:02
I trusted it's there but I've not seen it.

0:15:06
Oh no, I don't think I've seen that one either.

0:15:09
Oh yeah, it's a big TikTok commercial so. It runs like every five minutes.

0:15:14
But I did see the Instagram post with UNLV athletics where they had the basketball players and they had a box and the basketball players had to put their hands into the box and there was this prickly item that was in the box and they had to try to guess what it was. It was a pineapple, but it took off and it became like a very, a lot of reviews and a lot of postings in response to that. That was just such a fun way of engaging with the men's football, sorry, basketball team and they were just, they were so scared because they had no idea what they were touching. They could not see what was in the box. Kay, did you see that one?

0:16:03
Yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed watching that. The team over at UNL will be athletics and the really creative geniuses at the men's basketball team. That was a great video. I really loved watching it. It was just seeing the athletes' reactions to what could be in that box, it was good. It was good, brilliant work from them.

0:16:30
So when a team like yours is looking to have that kind of leverage with an audience that this posting is viewed over and over again, what is the strategy behind that? How do you think about creating something like that that's going to get a lot of attention? I would have associated men's basketball team putting their hands in a box and touching a pineapple and being shocked by that as a way to bring attention to the UNLV men's basketball team, but certainly it did. So, I mean, how does one even come from that creative vein of thinking of something like that to get people to tune in to what the men's basketball team is doing?

0:17:16
Yeah, well I think there's a good lesson in there in that, you know, with social media sometimes you can't be afraid to try something new and to take a risk and wherever that idea came from, I can really appreciate probably the amount of time their social media team probably put into selling that to someone. There's always kind of these behind the scenes things that have to happen before you can kind of get to that point where you're making a cool video. But I, you know, when you're trying to, I think sometimes the key to getting in success like that is maybe not necessarily trying to find that success. You're just out there and you have a great idea, maybe something a little edgy or risky or something new that you haven't seen before and you're just looking for ways to connect with people and sometimes it takes off and that's really great but they've been posting other videos too and I think all of those are good examples of just how we can get to know our athletics teams a little bit better and it really just goes back to the basics of social media and that people want to connect with something and they want to be entertained a little. So that's, that's, you know, what I think about take from that is that if you're, you know, where you kind of want to go, that success will come for sure.

0:18:39
Now how do you balance like privacy concerns that that students and other users have, and also just over saturation of content.

0:18:51
In terms of privacy, we try to be very considerate when we're out like on campus, seeing photos or videos. We're always letting people know that this is going on social media and we kind of give them the opportunity if they, if for whatever reason, they don't want to be on social media, we always do our best to respect that. A handful of times, I think we may have posted somebody's photo and they just didn't know their photo was getting taken and they may reach out. So we try to always just be open to that and and we definitely want to make sure that people are you know comfortable with how we're maybe showcasing them on social media. So it's a lot of conversation when we're doing student profiles. We let them know you know kind of when their photos are going to be used and their stories are going to be told so they have that information. And when you want to balance it with, there is so much social media content these days, so it's kind of a matter of posting consistently is something that I recommend a lot. Being very targeted in your approach and making sure that you're always kind of surveying your content and posting the things that people seem to respond to and balancing that out with whatever other goals you may have. So it can be hard to kind of break through all of the conversation on social media but as long as you're consistent and balanced and you're keeping an eye on what your audience is looking for I think there's a there's always a way to do that and to kind of break through some of those saturated places on the internet.

0:20:34
So I know that sometimes it's hard when you have issues with campus unrest, or there's issues surrounding diversity, equity, inclusion, and there's a sentiment and conviction that universities should take stances when it comes to advocating for the needs of historically underrepresented groups. But there's also the understanding about the UNLV brand and we're a diverse institution, minority-serving institution, and so we have a role to speak truth to power, we have a role to show what the university is doing. Talk about maybe some of the conversations that you've had to have with your team about, you know, how do we approach this through a social media lens when people are talking about, you know, maybe incident of a campus threat or something that's happening nationally, and they're, you know, to address what the campus is doing through the lens of social media? What are some of the challenges there and how have you all worked through those discussions to figure out what's the next step from a social media standpoint? Sure, sure. So it's a lot of having those conversations internally,

0:21:52
having conversations with the university leadership and determining what we should respond to, what we need to address. I think, you know, in terms of my role, it's a lot of monitoring conversations online, listening for what people are saying, and then trying to kind of make sure that information is heard by the decision makers at the university. So that's the approach I bring to it, no matter really what the topic is, I want to make sure that what people are saying is heard. And then from there, we have those conversations about what we need to respond to, what maybe should be in an email, what we should post about on social media. And then I think there's also a level of long-term support. So after maybe we've posted a message about a certain issue, how do we make sure that we're showcasing the action that we took? And I think in a lot of ways, that gets reflected through maybe the events that are happening on campus and making sure that we're always tuned in to those pieces because that's how a lot of the education and further action takes place is by getting involved or by coming to an event like the, we need to talk series from the libraries and the urban affairs was largely in response to a lot of social justice movements of 2020. And so we wanna make sure that we're highlighting that those things are happening at UNLV and that this is a place for education and learning and having those conversations. So those are kind of the biggest ways that we react to situations like that.

0:23:54
So we know that we recently had the President's State of the University Address, a lot of good information there. What was some of the feedback there that came through social media in relation to the work that he's doing and how he's doing the call to

0:24:11
action to the campus? That's a good question. So you know to be honest I'm not sure if there's been like from my perspective on social media where we're really kind of tuning into those student audiences, if there's been maybe a ton of conversation about the state of the university, but I know that a lot of people are really excited about the future of our campus and that he's kind of followed up that address with a lot of other interviews where we're talking more in depth about the new buildings and the way that our campus is expected to grow over the next 10 years. So I know there's a lot of excitement and interest there, but sometimes the challenge is when he, President Whitfield has these great events and these ideas, and then we have to kind of find ways to share that information on social media to maybe people who didn't watch the overall event. And so for us, that's really taken the form of sharing more information about the master plan, sharing more information about some of the new student resources he mentioned, like the U at UNLV app from the, I think it's the School of Integrated Health Sciences to kind of better support mental health, which I know has been a real subject of conversation, not just at UNLV, but at universities across the country, because students really are feeling pressure and maybe in these situations, we're things that are really weighing them and we want to give them as many resources to be successful as we can. And then there's one other thing that we have been working to feature. Oh, it's the new AI digital president-with-field chat system, where you can ask questions and the digital president will give you responses. So those are the pieces of state of the university that we're trying to give a longer shelf life than just being talked about at the event.

0:26:31
And then we'll get you out of here on this final question. How do listeners or interested parties connect to the UNLV social media feeds or threads?

0:26:42
Oh, yeah, great question. handles are easily found on the unlv.edu website. So if you scroll down to the bottom, you can find them all there. That might be the easiest way, but if you just search for UNLV on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or TikTok, you'll be able to come to our accounts pretty easily. And that's not just the main UNLV account, but I always encourage people to check out their college accounts or if there's any specific areas that they're interested in, those areas are probably on social media too. So it's a good way to connect not just with UNLV central accounts but with their specific subject areas as well. So besides searching for it on social media, I would say go to the website and you can get the direct links there.

0:27:39
All right. Renee, what was some of your key takeaways from today's podcast?

0:27:44
Well, quite a few.

0:27:45
I learned that a social media strategist and manager are one and the same, depending on, I guess, industry standards. I also found it very interesting to know that Instagram is one of the top ways that we're engaging our community through social media, but that TikTok is growing and something to be looked out on the horizon. I also learned that one of the ways to be effective as a social media strategist are just using social media is to not be afraid. I mean, we always say about all the do's and don'ts, but there's some level of, you know, try something new and there's cool ways to engage students. And so I certainly look for those opportunities as I'm always wanting to speak to new students, speak to new stakeholders. And I'm also glad to know that this department takes significant time to look at privacy concerns and to address that so that the students' stories are protected and the information is protected because we know that you make yourself vulnerable in these situations. And to know that they're giving sufficient time and attention to observing privacy concerns also was good to hear from Katie. What about you?

0:29:02
And I think just recognizing all the unique platforms that the university uses to reach the different audiences and how each of those platforms has different advantages and disadvantages in terms of how we show what the current students are doing on campus and how we share information to our various stakeholders. And then also recognize that, you know, as a department, you really have to embrace social media as as a real tool and how you inform your clients and students of the things that you do and how they can get connected. So I'm certainly going to take advantage and and probably invite Katie to come and speak to our team, our leadership team, about how we can maybe do a better job in leveraging social

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media.

0:29:46
For more Let's Talk UNLV, be sure to follow us on social media where you can get the latest updates on the show plus great behind-the-scenes content. We're on Facebook at Let's Talk UNLV Podcast, Twitter at Let's Talk UNLV, and Instagram We're on Facebook at Let's Talk UNLV Podcast, Twitter at Let's Talk UNLV, and Instagram at Let's Talk UNLV Pod.

Transcribed with Cockatoo