I had the chance to sit down and chat with Gabriella Camacho, communications and volunteer coordinator at Latino U College Access (LUCA), to get insights into how the organization plans to celebrate students
for College Signing Day 2021. During our time together, Gabriella shared quite a few nuggets and suggestions on how to have a successful virtual celebration.
Here are six tips for cultivating a successful #CollegeSigningDay social media campaign.
1. Mirror your campaign after an in-person agenda.
Don’t overthink how the week or day should look. Do almost exactly what you would do during an in-person College Signing Day event. If the CEO would kick off an in-person gathering with opening remarks, have them record their remarks by video. Essentially,
involve all those staff you would normally, from advisers to program managers, and even board members.
2. Identify pre-planning needs.
If you are wanting to utilize current students and alumni, be sure to reach out early – at least a week or two out from the campaign. You should be specific about your needs. For example, if you’re wanting students to submit videos to you, provide question
prompts for them to respond to, outline the length of the video (best practice is under 1 minute and 30 seconds), and provide this self-filming guide created by Better
Make Room so students take a professional recording. (Note: The submission deadline has passed for the contest.)
LUCA held a virtual workshop to build rapport with students and talk more about College Signing Day since the organization had been working with this year’s graduates mostly virtually.
3. Use a social media scheduling tool.
This will lighten your load and reduce the pressure of having to think about publishing tweets, posts, etc., every day. Here are a few scheduling tools to consider: Sprout Social, Hootsuite,
and Loomly. Some may have a free version. Generally, the free version may limit the number of social media profiles you can connect.
4. Incorporate graphics.
Need graphics? Consider creating and setting up a Canva account. Canva is known for being user-friendly and making one feel like a renowned graphic designer. This is a great tool if you’re looking to brand or edit
photos with college logos or other fun logos. Also, nonprofits can apply for free access to Canva Pro's premium features.
5. Spread out posts for the day.
LUCA scheduled posts to go out every roughly every hour or hour and a half. Do what feels natural for you without overwhelming your audience.
6. Encourage students to post from their own social media accounts.
Your students are most likely on social media! Get them excited and utilizing the #CollegeSigningDay hashtag and tagging Better Make Room and Reach Higher in their posts. How cool would it be if your students get a retweet, re-post, or reply from Michelle
Obama? Very cool, I’d argue.
We’re sure that our members are planning some fantastic ways to uplift and celebrate their students. We know these celebrations will continue to happen beyond the month of May and hope to get your juices flowing on how you can plan exciting virtual celebrations
for your students this year despite the continued challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Be on the lookout for additional blog posts about how other NCAN members are celebrating College Signing Day 2021!
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