Great Social Media Idea: Harvard in Autumn

I've only been to New England once in my life, and it was the middle of December and below zero. Not just below freezing. Literally below zero. I walked the Freedom Trail, and I got so cold that the only way I could thaw myself out was taking advantage of the very generous Harpoon Brewery tour (so, so much free beer).

I tell you this because despite hearing much about the fabled autumns of New England, I've never seen one.

That is, until today. When I spent a solid 20 minutes scrolling through the impossibly beautiful photos from Harvard's awesome #HarvardInAutumn campaign. Of course, this shouldn't come as a surprise... Harvard has an overwhelmingly, shockingly, incredibly intimidatingly good social media presence.

To see it in its full glory, check out this Storify  that curates all the best photos. You can also see them by searching the #HarvardInAutumn tag on Webstagram and Twitter.

This is such a perfect idea for social media, what with its taking advantage of something the region is famous for and all. (Maybe I should do a "Portland in Rain" photo promotion... who doesn't love a good gray sky?) So right off the bat, you know it's going to be successful. People who live in New England are proud of their Autumns.

Plus, Fall colors look good no matter what, which makes them the perfect subject for all the armchair Instagram photographers out there. 

Best of all, I love how all of the different departments on campus that have official social media accounts took part in the promotion. It was adopted all over campus and was used consistently (even the athletics department!), which helped assure that the community saw the hashtag being used and was aware of the promotion.

As someone who is guilty as charged of sometimes seeing departmental social media accounts as nuisances more than partners, it was really neat to see them working together on a campaign like this. It's easy to overlook departmental pages, but they have real power when it comes to helping spread the word about social media promotions you are trying to run from the main "official" institutional page. 

Well done, Harvard! I do indeed like them apples.  (I'm sure that joke is older than dirt at Harvard, but I can't help myself... apologies all around!)