CCU Social Media embraces Snapchat
One of the aims of Coastal Carolina's social media program is to interact with students on platforms where they are conversing. Even if a particular channel is considered taboo or a waste of time by the powers that be at other universities, CCU won’t overlook it.
Snapchat is an extremely popular photo messaging service among the younger generation. The distinguishing mark of this social media channel is that once an image is sent (called a “Snap”) from one user to the next, the receiving person only has a limited amount of time to view it before the photo disappears forever.
Many companies and businesses, not just universities, haven’t had a clue on how to incorporate Snapchat into their social media strategy. About nine months ago, Coastal broke the mold and created an account (“ccuchanticleers”). Our goal was to use Snapchat to inform students of deadlines and events while also including beautiful pictures from campus. The account took off, and it didn’t take long for the Snaps we sent out to garner an average of 150 views each.
To know that we were hitting triple digit numbers of students each time we sent out an image was powerful. To maintain momentum, we wanted to take our Snapchat account to the next level. On March 27, we staged an event called SnapchaNt.
On that last Friday in March, we shut down all of our social media channels except for Snapchat. We let our audience know that, in order to follow us on that particular day, they would have to log off of Facebook and Twitter and check us out on Snapchat. While we very well could have alienated some of our loyal social media followers with such a bold move, the opposite seemed to be the case.
At the beginning of the week of March 23 to 27, our Snapchat account had 304 followers. At the end of the day that Friday we had 851. Over the course of SnapchaNt, we sent out more than 50 Snaps with each image receiving around 600 views. The buzz created by the event bolstered our account and brought renewed enthusiasm to our social media program.
With a beefed up audience, we will use Snapchat in our social media strategy even more. Because of the importance students place on this particular social media service, we have the luxury of connecting with them at the “snap” of a finger. #CCUSocialMedia will never cease to find innovative ways to stay in touch with our student body.
