Great Facebook and Twitter Idea: Bridging the Gap

The living may indeed by easy in the summertime, but you know what's not? Coming up with stuff to post on all the various social media outlets when students are gone for the summer, everyone's away on vacation, and not a whole lot is going on around campus. Heck, sometimes it's enough to make you miss the days of philosophy professors and the student Economics Club sending you breathless emails requesting that you post something to help promote their really interesting lectures and panel discussions.

There are lots of strategies to get around this - Trivia Tuesday, Throwback Thursday, Foto Friday, Wasted Wednesday, etc. (Or wait... maybe not that last one, though if you think about it - how popular would it be to post really embarrassing student party pics? Sigh... the things I could do if I didn't value getting a paycheck.) Things like that are all well and good, but personally I find them a bit trite and boring. Don't get me wrong, I'll bust out a #tbt photo like nobody's business when it's 2PM and I can't come up with anything better than a lousy Google News alert of an alumni obit. But for the most part, I have a high enough opinion of myself that I strive not to deign to stoop to such tactics.

Which is why I like this so much from West Virginia University.  

I'm not sure those "hills" in West Virginia qualify as mountains. Just sayin'.

Every day for 12 days, the WVU Facebook page posted a photo documenting the Top 12 moments from the 2012-13 athletics year. (They did 12 because it was WVU's first season in the Big 12, even though technically the Big 12 has 10 members and the Big 10 has 12... oh how I love conference realignment!) Using a simple template to keep the look and feel consistent, they posted a variety of photos covering a wide range of sports. They invited fan participation using the #HailWV hashtag (which is quite popular... props WVU!), and the photos proved very popular, receiving significant engagement rates.

Top 10, Top 12, Top 15, whatever... this is a versatile idea that can be used for lots of things beyond athletics: Top 10 events on campus; Top 12 most popular photos you posted throughout the year; Top 15 media stories about the college; etc. Whatever you feel is a strong suit for your school, spend a bit of time coming up with a list and presto: you've got a week or two worth of posts covered!