How Student Creators Fuel Boston University’s Social Presence

Feb 9, 2024

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If you want to showcase the experience of being a student, who better to ask than the students themselves? We shine the spotlight on Boston University’s student creator program with Director of Social Media, Dave McDonald. Much like with user-generated content, student creators bring authenticity, creativity, and expert knowledge to their audience.

Full Episode Details

Dave McDonald, Boston University’s Director of Social Media, joins Social Pros to talk about his Terrier Creator Program - a program for student social media creators to produce content about student life.

The program has been a huge success since its launch. BU’s social media content is fresh, engaging, and highly targeted to its audience because student creators have in-depth knowledge of what the target audience wants to see and engage with.

Dave explains how the program operates, his approach to coaching students, and why he prefers to let the students flex their creativity rather than restrict them with formal creative briefs. Dave also speaks about the importance of following trends, optimizing content for platforms, reporting on metrics, and ensuring creators always have the chance to bring new ideas to the table.

In This Episode:

1:22 - Dave explains his day-to-day responsibilities and the programs he runs
2:31 - How Boston University builds its international social presence
4:25 - Why reporting is so critical for Boston University’s social push
5:30 - What the Terrier Creator Program involves
8:42 - How the program optimizes content creation for each platform
10:07 - Why the program is open to new ideas from student creators
13:04 - How student creators highlight the student experience on social
14:09 - How Dave coaches student creators and other university departments
16:26 - The art of the pivot – how Dave coaches people through campaign pivots
17:45 - The importance of testing new ideas and jumping on trends
19:01 - How Dave balances the creator program with scheduled social content
20:30 - Why student creators don’t get strict creative briefs
23:03 - Dave’s advice on working with student content
24:27 - Dave shares some standout content stories
25:57 - What’s next for Dave’s team
28:59 - Dave’s top tip for becoming a social pro

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