One year ago we recruited five students to be Marjon’s first Social Media Champions. Their job is to help the Marketing team create engaging content for social media. We work together to showcase the best of Marjon on the University’s official social media accounts and on the Team Marjon blog. One year on and we’re absolutely loving the content they create! With their help we capture much more of Marjon life.
Social Media Champions help us to capture the moments that matter most to our students and help us understand what works (and doesn’t work) on social media. Here are my favourites from their work so far, in no particular order…
- Lee Ridley AKA Lost Voice Guy, winner of Britain’s Got Talent 2018 came to campus. His keynote was great, as is Shannon’s video edit.
2. Hannah used her artistic skills to create a stunning and unique video about back muscles.
3. Geoffery went to the United States as an exchange student. His Connecting Continents post describes how he and his US course mates sent a message of support to his hometown of Leicester following a tragic explosion there. The message was featured on both BBC News and ITV News and he wrote about the amazing experience here on the Team Marjon blog.
4. Marjon is near to city, coast and countryside which makes for great photographs. Stuart’s stunning moor and sea photos were perfect to celebrate #DevonDay.
5. The cutest photo of the year came when Adam meet a puppy called Albus on campus.
The work is so varied, other examples of work done by the team includes:
- Interviewing Professors and our Student Union President
- Live coverage of conferences at the University
- Live stories at Graduation
- Writing press releases
- Photography at University events such as the Sports Awards and Open Days
- Writing for the team Marjon blog
- Seasonal campus photos – flowers in Spring and snow in Winter
- And last (but by no means least)… updates from BUCS and Varsity
As a Social Media Champion you get to be creative and the role is very flexible to fit in around your studies. You play to your strengths. This could be design, presenting, blogging, writing, story-telling, podcasting, interviewing, photography and/or video.
Social Media Champion is a paid role and you’ll get great experience to add to your CV and/or portfolio. Plus you’ll enjoy it, much like one Champion who recently handed in a timesheet really, really late saying: “It just doesn’t feel like work”.
Hannah, a third year student and Social Media Champion, tells us more…
“Social Media Champion is a role that came in so students could showcase the university from their perspective. For any creative, social media savvy personal, this is the perfect job! It is open for you to be imaginative and choose what you want to produce.
This year, I’ve not only created blog posts, but I’ve been covering events such as Varsity on Snapchat and Instagram. I’ve also done a lot of filming and promotion in the lion mascot costume which is always great fun. Look out for our very own lion gifs over the next year! My recent muscles video has been my favourite and I loved creating it. I wanted to do something to do with my course (Sports Therapy) and painting. With Owen in the Marketing team lending his video skills we were able to create a short piece on the back muscles. It’s been watched three thousand times on Facebook alone. This shows the diversity of the work available and how you can take any interest and put your own spin on it.
You can do things that are close to your heart or personal to you to inspire others. It doesn’t have to be complicated, you could just regularly blog about student life, what to expect, top tips (or what not to do!). Prospective students looking to study at a university want to hear current students’ opinions. It’s our job to create and post engaging and enthusiastic content to encourage this, and encourage people to join in. You do not have to be a journalism student, or a professional photographer, you just need to be creative and be able to think outside the box, come up with ideas to show off this wonderful university on social media!
It is the perfect way to get involved with university events and give something back, but you get paid at the same time! Win win! I’ve learnt a lot of skills, especially communication, that I will be able to use in other aspects in my life. If I haven’t sold it to you already, this job will be great to put on your CV; social media is such a popular, upcoming platform to promote yourself and get yourself out there in the real world.”
And finally, thank you to Adam, Geoffery, Hannah, Shannon and Stuart for your ideas and insight this year. You absolutely are all ‘Champions’!
Update: Following a round of recruitment in Winter 2018 there are now 14 Social Media Champions and applications are closed until Winter 2019.