Great Social Media Idea: A Deal is a Deal

You all should know by now that I'm a sucker for a good story featuring a college president, so it likely comes as no surprise that I absolutely love this story from Eastern Kentucky University.

An EKU student sent out a facetious tweet to Michael Benson, EKU's president, saying that he would come to class if the president came and shoveled his driveway. President Benson quickly agreed, made good on his promise, and then inspired several students to shovel the driveways of their neighbors. I mean... how good is that?!?

It's amazing how one little story like this can give such insight into the type of person Michael Benson is. And, if we learned anything from Jonah Sach's seminal Winning the Story Wars,  it's that great stories like this are the ones that break through the clutter and that people will actually remember. Just think how powerful something like this can be in shaping what students, parents, alumni, etc. think about Eastern Kentucky.

Examples like show so clearly the power social media can have to personalize administrators and connect them with the community in such a powerful way. It's not for everyone (it needs to be authentic!), but for members of leadership who buy into it, it can do so much good in terms of branding and PR.

Institutions need superstars sometimes, and if your president goes out and plays one on Twitter, well, that's just fantastic.  :)

And if I may put on my media relations hat for a moment.... I did a quick search and saw that this popped up on some local news, but this is the type of story that could easily make it onto national headlines and/or the front page of Reddit. (I'd recommend the UpliftingNews subreddit, if anyone feels like getting some link karma). I'm sure EKU's media relations team has been on it, but there is definitely a lot of hay to be made with a story as good as this.

Many thanks to whomever sent this idea in to me, and huge props to Michael Benson for being awesome and to the EKU marketing team for getting this story out there!