The University of Georgia
UGA’s English Department
The English Department at UGA is the host of nearly every major at some point; all majors, regardless of their focus, must complete minimum literature requirements.
- Graphic Design
- Social Media Marketing
- Copywriting
- Data Analytics
- Communications
In Fall of 2022, the English Department hired me to be a Social Media Marketing intern. Since the pandemic in 2020, the English Department at UGA had struggled to get back the engagement they had had pre-pandemic. They wanted someone that could bring a creative, authentic prescence to their social media and update their branding.
Fall 2022-Spring 2024
The Challenge
As the social media marketing intern, I was tasked with growing the English Department’s following, primarily on Instagram, but also on Facebook and Twitter. I also challenged myself to update the pages’ looks through content and branding strategy, so that the impacts I made could be replicated by future staff.
The Process
First, I conducted an audit of everything the English Department had posted previously, and how it had performed. Their content wasn’t outdated or uninteresting, but it did fail to keep up with social media trends and current branding. It was their approach that needed work, rather than the information they were distributing.
Above is the English Department’s page before I began working for them. The posts reflect the style of a blog rather than a university department, and didn’t tell a cohesive story.
Next, I interviewed my client: the English Department. I contacted influential professors and asked them about how they wanted their programs to be promoted. I worked with the existing social media director to learn how to operate within UGA’s style and brand guidelines while also developing a unique brand kit for the English Department. I interviewed my fellow students and classmates to find what kind of content they would engage with.
Then it was time to synthesize my interviews into concrete, executable ideas. I categorized the information I had gathered into promotion (for events, programs, and student achievments) and engagement (to make the department seem personable and current). With this two-pronged approach, I was able to draft a content calendar, and finally start creating posts using Canva.
When creating posts, I used the consistent fonts and color palettes that I had developed earlier in the process. With this brand kit, I had an easily accessible resource to pull from, so that even when the subject of the content I posted varied, the page as a whole still looked cohesive and told the same story.
Once I began to see results from social media, I challenged myself to bring the new branding I had developed into other areas, such as the English Department’s newsletter, The Park Hall Monitor. I worked with professors to pitch potential stories, then interviewed influential faculty to promote unique opportunities within the department. If you would like to read those articles, an example can be found here.
The Result
In the first six months as an intern, Instagram following grew from 528 to 782. By the time I finished my internship, the page had reached 1,100 followers, with an average engagement rate of 5%. Over the course of two years, I remained agile; I wasn’t afraid to change or update my strategy based on current trends, and as a result my best performing post had over 200 likes. Additionally, I learned that the best strategy is often the most unexpected, because that aforementioned post was simply a picture of an owl that had fascinated the students.