Each term, new students embark on the profound transition into university life. As first-year students search for connection and community in a new place, feelings of isolation, overwhelm, and anxiety swirl. To support this transition, we can turn to social media to reach students in ways that are engaging and accessible to them. Building a student-centered social presence is an effective and important way to show students that both their peers and university are there for them throughout the journey. As content creators and strategists, we can bridge the strategic goals of our institution with the dynamic needs of new students through mindful digital interactions. The secret sauce: leveraging our collective empathy and communication skills to build relationships with our audience based on trust, honesty, and care.
In this session, I plan to discuss the human-centered strategies we’ve used at the Office of Student Life at the University of Victoria to connect intentionally and earnestly with first-year students through our social media platform (UVicYearOne). By sharing our approach to employing and empowering student content creators, I’ll discuss how peer-to-peer storytelling and needs-based content design act as pillars to a social media content strategy that builds real trust and community engagement. I plan to share examples of content projects from our account that normalize the real needs, feelings, and struggles of students at different points in the student lifecycle which helped us build a social media brand that resonates with our first-year audience. Instead of seeing student-facing content creation as a form of marketing, what if we saw it as an opportunity to build positive digital relationships with first year students to help them feel supported, encouraged, and seen by the institution? That’s how we can both tell and show students, “we’ve got you”.
Hayley Park
Communications Officer, Office of Student Life, University of Victoria
Hayley Park is a driven communications professional working at the Office of Student Life at the University of Victoria as
the Communications Officer. Her portfolio focuses on new student engagement through all communications channels,
including managing an Instagram account dedicated to supporting students in their first year and beyond. With a
background in graphic design and content strategy, coupled with a passion for empathy-driven design and storytelling,
Hayley is an advocate for bringing creative projects to life that are co-created with and for students. Hayley is keen to hit
the #PSEWeb stage as a keynote speaker, and share her insights and experiences in her presentation: We’ve Got You:
Using Human-Centered Storytelling to Support First-Year Students through Social Media. In her free time, you might find
Hayley indulging in the sights and bites of Vancouver Island, drawing by the beach, thrifting too many sweaters, or
studying up on typefaces and hex codes (yes, really).