A Better Brand

Social Media Brief

By: Randy Joly

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 Table of Contents
Overview 3
Branding Statement 3
Departments Goals on Social Media 3
Review 3
Competitive Analysis 4
General Rules 5

Social Media Campaigns 7

Campaign 1 7
Objective Statement 7
General Rules 7
Profile Description 7
Campaign Description 8
Campaign 2 11
Objective Statement 11
General Rules 11
Profile Description 11
Campaign Description 12

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 Overview

Brand Statement
The Department of English at OU nurtures learning in several ways by offering many
classes that cater to a variety of interests, such as hip-hop, Shakespeare, or graphic
novels. Possessing this wide range of different classes within two general areas of
study, literary study and writing, the Department of English values practical and
creative thinkers, and encourages the study of many practices, genres, cultures, and
artistic forms. Our goal is the development of student learning within their area of
interest through the cultivation of literary and written technique.

Departments Goals on Social Media

The Department of Englishs goals through social media at this moment are
directly linked to the distribution of information to the student body. Their
primary goal is to inform the departments students of upcoming news and events
within the department. This only directly relates to students within the English
field, and possible followers of English related activity within OUs campus.

Review
The only real piece of social media the department of English controls is their
Facebook page. Upon first perusal, it becomes immediately clear that the page
leaves something to be desired. The page consists mostly of flyers for events and
block texts describing current news within the Department. Its clear that the
page is trying to provide information to its students. The departments page does
a good job of posting relevant information onto their page as it arises. Yet there is
nothing engaging within the page itself. Almost all the pictures are of bland
advertisements for events on campus, and there are almost no pictures of
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students. It is also apparent that the page is not regularly updated as posts are
uploaded with weeks between. This lack of student representation and irregular
schedule is a serious problem as it does not show action within the department as
a whole. There is no engagement or call to action being given.

Competitive Analysis
When looking at other universities social media pages, it is easy to find plenty of
examples that do it right. The MSU Denver Department of English Facebook page
is a plethora of good ideas and concepts. You immediately are given a warm
description that lets you know the page is a space is for the students, future
students, faculty, and friends of the Department of English of Metropolitan State
University of Denver. This automatically calls not only to current students, but
also welcomes those who are interested in an English degree, and even those
who are just interested in English in general. There is also immediately plenty of
photos showing students having fun and getting involved that really give you a
sense of an active, friendly department. In addition, the page posts articles fairly
regularly (at least twice a week), and a few of the posts are campaigns or calls to
action that can get their readers involved.1
A second example of a good Facebook page comes from the University of Maltas
Department of English. Similar to the MSU page, the University of Maltas page
immediately shows photos of their students having fun and participating in
events. In addition to this, the page is very active, posting at least one post a day.
Most of the posts they make are very inviting and subjectively relevant pieces
that range from 5 Things You Didnt Know About William Blake to The Very
Best Episodes of Girls (the television show) Are Short Stories. This broad range of
topics invites a lot of different spectators who can enjoy and relate to their
brand.2
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https://www.facebook.com/MSUDenverEnglishDept/
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https://www.facebook.com/uom.english/
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General Rules
1. When dealing with complaints, it is best to try and use your best judgement
based upon the comment. If the comment makes a good point and could
be considered constructive to our persona (i.e. calling us out on a mistake
we made or letting us know that a post is hurtful in a way not noticed or
intended), do your best to answer to the quandary and make necessary
changes. If you deem the comment to be non-constructive to our brand
image (i.e. general complaints about a teacher or a heavy-handed comment
regarding the university as a whole), it is in your best interest to either
direct the commenter to someone who can better answer their complaint,
or, if extremely slanderous or upsetting, delete the comment entirely.
2. Post should generally be no more than two or three sentences when
accompanied with another form of media (i.e. photo, video, article, etc.).
Text posts by themselves should be avoided if at all possible, except in
situations where a lot of information is required (such as our post regarding
hate speech on campus). Ask an administrator if such an occasion requires
itself.
3. Try to post at least three times a week. The more active we seem within
our social media accounts, the more we show that we are a motivated,
action-oriented department.
4. When confronted with politics, the best answer is to remain neutral. There
are some special exceptions that may pop up at times where remaining
neutral would cast us in a negative light. In such situations, an
administrator will let you know how to address the problem.
5. The types of posts we want to be making are varying degrees of topics
within articles, news within the English field, and information about events
on our campus. We want to diversify our posts to reach to a broader
audience (both old and new subject matters) while remaining within the
English field. We also want to post pictures of students participating in
events on campus. We might also want to share events or news from other
departments on our campus.
6. Regarding our brand, we want to make sure our posts align to our brand
statement. We are a scholarly department that caters to many different
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 cultures and interests. We want to provide a wide variety of articles and
information that will cater to many different peoples, while remaining at
least semi-professional in our tone.
7. When questioning the approval of a composed post, you should seek
approval from one of your administrators (i.e. Will Kurlinkus or Daniela
Garofalo).
8. Passwords for each of our social media accounts should be discussed and
given to your administrators for storage and use in case of emergencies.
9. When posting content, try to provide the hashtags #OU and #ouenglish.

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 Social Media Campaign #1: Twitter Campaign

Objective Statement
The objective of our Twitter account would be to present the English
department at OU as a fun and learned environment that is open to all
different sorts of people.

General Rules
1. Try to provide one short message per tweet. Twitter is a platform for
fast, easily-assessable information.
2. Try to include some visual media in each tweet.
3. Try to offer calls to action within posts. Provide links that will take
followers to relevant information or events.
4. Try and re-tweet relevant information as much as possible. Add in
comments that project our brand.
5. Follow people selectively. An over-abundance of information being
pushed onto your feed can make it hard to find relevant information.
6. Try to have a calendar of events and news mapped out for each month.
Plan out certain posts for certain days.
7. Try to provide Twitter polls when you can. These get the students
involved and show we care what they think.

Profile Description
OUs Department of English is a combination of the theoretical and creative that
offers diversity of interests, cultures, and artistic forms within the English
language.

This description within our Twitter page most notably marks our inclusion of a
variety of different types of people, and will make the reader feel open to the
idea of our brands wide scope.

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Campaign Description
The campaign I propose is a based upon a Twitter fad: #explainafilmplotbadly.
This campaign has people posting descriptions of some of their favorite movies in
the worst ways they can think of. My proposed campaign is the same as this, but
with books: #explainanovelbadly. We can ask followers to pick their favorite
books and give us their most terrible descriptions of the text. This campaign
would not only be a lot of fun for those who participate and read the bad
descriptions, but would also be a way to get students and non-students involved
within our department. This would garner attention and interest to our Twitter
account and our department as a whole.

Examples:

1.

This Twitter post gives a good look at the type of inventive descriptions students
can give to their favorite novels. The descriptions used can be short and easy to
read, while providing funny commentary over their books.3

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https://twitter.com/realredlobster/status/855029756349296640
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2.

This Twitter sample is interesting because the user gives us no title to her movie
or any image to give a clue. This puts a fun twist on the concept as students could
have fun trying to guess and figure out what book the other was talking about.
This could provide more exchange between persons and allow for more action to
take place.4

3.

This is a post from MSU Denvers English department which calls for students to
add the phrase And then the murders began. to the openings of their favorite
books. This campaign is similar to ours and is a good example of a campaign which
can invite participation and fun within our social media page.5

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https://twitter.com/Pandamoanimum/status/854966836970098688
5
https://www.facebook.com/MSUDenverEnglishDept/
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Specific Campaign Rules:
1. Make sure you include the hashtags #OU and #OUenglish in your initial post
to draw attention from those searching the tags.
2. Make sure you include the tag #explainanovelbadly in any tweet made
regarding the campaign.
3. Try to retweet any tweets participating in the campaign (as long as they are
appropriate).
4. You might try to recruit some people before the campaign starts so you
have some initial momentum when the campaign is put into action.

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Social Media Campaign #2: Instagram Campaign

Objective Statement
The objective of our Instagram account would be to show our department as an
active and community-driven environment.

General Rules
1. Show off the students within our department. Make them the center of our
attention, as they are the center our interests.
2. Show off aspects of our department within OUs campus. Take pictures of
Cate 2 and the actions oriented within (classes, studying, etc.).
3. Try to provide interesting perspectives and odd angles to provide new and
exciting content.
4. Use the hashtags #OU and #ouenglish when you can. Share multiple other
hashtags that could entice viewers.
5. Spotlight other photos and highlight quotations of people within our
department or campus in general. Try and incorporate photos of students
in our department.
6. Try to plan out special days in advance (i.e. events, campus meetups,
lectures, etc..).

Profile Description
The Department of English at the University of Oklahomas official Instagram
profile.

With Instagram, short and to the point is the best option. The main draw of
Instagram is the images produced, so our photos will do the talking for us. Just
giving a clear and concise description of who we are clues our viewers in.

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Campaign Description
The campaign I propose for our Instagram account is a simple but fun concept:
taking a picture of your favorite place to read. This campaign would get people
motivated to take pictures of themselves reading in their favorite nooks, crannies,
chairs, couches, etc. This leads to multiple opportunities for fun ideas and allows
for a broad number of places and books to choose from. This would get students
actively taking pictures of themselves to share. We could even go so far as to
make it their favorite place to read on-campus, as this would get more activity
within the campus itself. This would target both current students and potential
students who are interested in the locations and reading materials. Well use the
hashtag #OUreadingspots to keep track of peoples posts in order to share their
photos.

Examples:

1.

The hashtag #bookandtea is a great place to look at people sharing their favorite
item (tea) and their favorite book. This tag has a lot of traffic and offers lots of
opportunities for creativity and user interaction.
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2.

The Instagram profile @hotdudesreading has a great concept of men shown

simply reading within their given environment. Although our campaign would not
cater to simply the call of attractive men, this is still a good example of how a
concept such as people sitting and reading can garner interest.6

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https://www.instagram.com/hotdudesreading/?hl=en
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3.

Another example of novels and location, this author on Instagram takes the books
he reads with him wherever he goes and takes pictures of them. This concept
could be implemented somehow into our campaign: maybe have people take
pictures of their books in their travels, or simply of their books through a normal
day.7

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https://www.instagram.com/oliverskywolf/
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Specific Campaign Rules:
1. Make sure you include the hashtags #OU and #OUenglish in your initial post
to draw attention from those searching the tags.
2. Make sure you include the hashtag #OUreadingspots in any post you
publish relating to the campaign.
3. Try to retweet any tweets participating in the campaign (as long as they are
appropriate).
4. You might try to recruit some people before the campaign starts so you
have some initial momentum when the campaign is put into action.
5. If we end up making it about students favorite spots on campus, have
people going around trying to find people participating in the campaign.
This could provide extra content for our Instagram and other social media
pages.

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