How the University of Cambridge got smart with social media

Barney Brown explains how the University of Cambridge uses Hootsuite to manage data shared across its 260+ social media profiles

Running a university is similar to running a business. We must be innovative and we constantly need to find new and fresh ways to attract the world's top talent, or in our case, students.

When I joined the University of Cambridge in 2008, we were just beginning to shape our approach to digital channels. A few years ago, as part of my role, we looked at how we could revamp our digital strategy by leveraging our social data and channels in a useful way.

A large percentage of current and potential students look to social media for answers and use the platform as a way to connect to the university. Getting our social strategy right is critical to the University of Cambridge's over-arching goal of developing and deepening a connection between the university, its long history, potential and existing students, employees and wider communities. We knew we needed to get it right.

Making social media work for you

In 2009 we conducted a social media audit and found that we were facing a challenge. There were more than 260 social profiles bearing the university's name and they were being managed by a variety people across multiple institutions, with various levels of checks and safety guards in place.

We knew what we were doing wasn't best practice, but we lacked the resources necessary to monitor and maintain them manually. With more than 9,000 members of faculty and more than 18,000 students, we had no shortage of supporters and content contributors, but the scale of the operation came at a cost.

Our team knew we needed a partner to help us simplify our social strategy and to help us respond to incoming enquiries from current and prospective students, in the most cost and time effective way. We began working with Hootsuite to look at how we could leverage the information and data that was being shared on these channels.

The bulk of what we do from our central channels focuses on sharing content, asking relevant questions, and measuring audience responses to different types of content, so we chose Hootsuite to manage our social accounts and provide us with the analytics to deliver our message strategically. The team began by setting up several content streams, and we also used Hootsuite insights to develop social media guidelines for our students and staff. Developing guidelines provided us with ideas on the types of content to produce that resonated with the university's core social audiences.

Using big data to drive business change

Together with deep social insights and Hootsuite's listening and monitoring capabilities, our team is also prepared for any crisis management issues and quick responses, should any issues arise. This feature helped us recognise pain points in our communication and overall strategy.

We also use Hootsuite Analytics to craft reports and monitor accounts belonging to a range of advocates from students, affiliated organisations, influencers, and friends of the university. This also helped us monitor the impact of the social channels and measure the effectiveness against the university's overall digital strategy.

Understanding how our content performs helped optimise external communications for the largest impact. Our team can now track our success and monitor the impact that social media is having on attracting and engaging with the best students and top talent.

With the understanding of how our content worked, we were able to successfully craft easily digestible and engaging content for new audiences. Metrics from Hootsuite have provided us with tangible and quantifiable insights to measure content that is also shared with leadership teams.

In a short space of time we were able to grow our Facebook fan base with a 400 per cent increase in the number of followers. We also observed rising figures of shares, likes, and comments on the channel, which gave us an insight to the success of our digital strategy.

Making digital integral to our overall strategy

At the University of Cambridge we are using social media to become more accessible to new and broader audiences worldwide. Our main aim is to contribute to society with education and research, leading the way for higher education. The social stage gives us an opportunity to build and promote better understanding and public awareness of the work and research taking place at the university.

We're excited by what we've done so far, what lessons we have learned and looking towards the future, how we might be able to use our social media channels to drive even greater business change.

Barney Brown is head of digital communications at the University of Cambridge