By Melissa Dickson
Hannah Fellows, a senior marketing student at the University of Montana, has been the social media coordinator for UM campus dining for almost three years. Her roles include creating content for Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and the campus dining website. She says she fell in love with the creation process, running campaigns and creating content for anything digital marketing.
UM Journalism student Melissa Dickson recently interviewed Fellows about her work on social media and below is a transcript of their conversation, edited for clarity and accuracy.
Q: How do you build trust with your audience in terms of keeping their attention and engagement?
A: I would say, I think the best way to build trust with your audience is to keep it real which sounds cheesy but is so true. A lot of the projects I work on are very student focused and Gen-Z focused, and I have found in my years of doing this role that people respond to content that relates to them and is more relaxed, content that is real.
For me personally, I make sure that when I’m photographing a campaign or a project that I’m photographing the real food, the real packaging, having real students included and the real atmosphere. The more you try to change, alter and manipulate a campaign, the less your audience is going to engage and look for it. At least in my opinion, I have had great success with campaigns that were more relaxed and chill, and definitely Gen-Z focused rather than the ones I have where it is a big production with a lot of alterations and changes.
To keep my audience engaged, I have a few go to’s. My first is probably using a variety of students, because the more people you feature with your products the more people engage because they know them, they see a friendly face, they get excited to be a part of a UM branded campaign, etc. I also like to follow social media trends, if there’s a trending sound, I’ll try to put it with one of my projects or it will inspire a project. I also definitely love to use features specifically through meta, so on Facebook and Instagram that allow your audience to engage immediately like surveys, polls questions, etc.
Q: What are some strategies that you have used in order to tell a story about what you are marketing? Do you think they are working?
A: I have experimented and tried so many different strategies in my years while working here some things I’ve definitely seen come out positively are tying current trends to what we are trying to market. For example, one of my recent campaigns was to promote our “to go box “ system for The Lodge Dining center, and we decided to tie that to a trend that’s going around on the Internet, called “this and yap” so by combining that trend with what I needed to promote in a 30-second video we were able to have extreme engagement along with around 15k views of our video. It would be hard to say that marketing is the reason why our to-go boxes actually sold out, but I would say that that video definitely helped promote our program and now we are very successful in that department.
Q: How do you gauge what content is most appealing for your audience, making it relevant?
A: would say that I gauge what content is going to be most appealing to my audience because my audience is myself. I am looking at my target market as 18 to 21-year-olds that go to the University of Montana just like myself , because I am so up-to-date on trends and what is happening within my generation what people are liking to see, what people are not liking to see, I feel like I am able to use my own capabilities and my own likes and interest and really put them into my work.
Q: What would you describe is the “product” that you are trying to sell your audience through posts or ads online?
A: We are selling amazing on-campus food, whether it’s retail and found in the University Center or at the Market or its dining plans through the Lodge Dining Center. we are promoting our Montana made products, locally grown products and amazing recipes for everyone to enjoy.
Q: What techniques do you use to foster a strong community around the brand?
A: I would say my techniques for fostering a strong community around the brand is kind of like I said before by keeping it real, keeping it authentic and relating it to my target audience.
This Q&A is part of a series created by students in Courtney Cowgill’s Social Media and Audience Engagement course at the University of Montana School of Journalism. Students sought out creatives who are doing using media for good to offer tips and insights into the ever-evolving landscape of social media.
Montana Journalism 