How an Ivy League Uses a Social-First Approach to Build Community

How does an Ivy League school manage its social media with a small team? We asked Maya Wesby, Social Media Manager at Harvard Graduate School of Education, for some insider insights into her role on this week’s Social Pros.

Full Episode Details

With a small social media team consisting of Maya Wesby (Social Media Manager) and a student intern, a key part of Maya’s role is wearing many different hats. While challenging, Maya’s realm of responsibility includes creating social-first content for multiple platforms, videos, editorial content for the website, and even a podcast on top of it all.

Maya joins this episode of Social Pros to share her secrets to balancing it all and creating engaging content for students, alumni, faculty members, and anyone else interested in learning about the school.

In this episode, we hear how Maya has become a master at prioritizing the best content to work on, how she jumps on opportunities to create new content, and where she gets inspiration from. We also hear a bit about her personal branding on LinkedIn and why she’s a big fan of the platform.

In This Episode:

• 1:38 - Maya gives us an introduction to her role
• 4:13 - Who Maya’s audience is on different platforms
• 5:11 - The challenge of managing different brand voices across social media channels
• 7:07 - Balancing social-first content to build a community with the institution’s needs
• 8:18 - How Maya prioritizes what content to work on in a small team
• 10:08 - Maya’s experience with generative AI
• 13:06 - How Maya seeks out student events that make great social content
• 14:50 - The types of engagement Maya seeks out and how she manages reporting
• 16:45 - Maya shares some of her favorite content projects
• 20:26 - How to review last year’s content and take it up a notch
• 23:29 - Why Maya uses LinkedIn for her personal brand
• 27:54 - Maya’s top tip for those looking to become a social pro

Resources

• Grab your free Social Media Audit Bundle
• Connect with Maya on LinkedIn
• Follow Harvard Graduate School of Education on X

Visit SocialPros.com for more insights from your favorite social media marketers.