Westminster Social Media Core Launches
Lana Poole, Westminster’s vice president of marketing and strategic communications, recently launched a social media core group to more effectively integrate and cross-promote college stories in various departments’ social media channels.
“The purpose of the SM Core is to bring together a core group of Westminster College faculty, staff, students and alumni to intentionally build positive awareness and buzz about Westminster through social media,” she said.
Kirsten Carney, social media manager, will manage the group, which will meet on a regular basis to discuss opportunities. “We have such a diverse campus with a wide variety of interests represented in the SM Core,” she said. “This is the perfect opportunity to pull together, learn from each other and really get the word out in social media.”
One member of the SM Core is Westminster College junior Nicholas Spain. He has helped to drive usage of SnapChat, a social media tool that allows users to instantly see what’s going on around campus, to promote Westminster. “It’s a great way to showcase the many different activities that are going on at any point in time,” he said.
Other members of the initial SM Core include:
- James Arnold, Associate Athletic Director and Head Women’s Basketball Coach
- Sarah Munns, Director of Alumni Engagement
- Jessica Haefke, Associate Director of Financial Aid
- Annie Mulvey, Westminster Social Media Intern
- Emily Perry, Churchill Institute for Global Engagement
- Kristi Crowley, Head Women’s Lacrosse Coach
- Nicole Elliott, Assistant Director of Campus Life
- Josh Villarreal, Assistant Football Coach
- Sara Stafford, Assistant Softball Coach
“I’d like to thank everyone who is coming together to make the SM Core a reality,” Poole said. “By working together across units, we will build a stronger social media presence that will help to build awareness, interest, engagement, enrollment and inspire philanthropy.”
The SM Core is part of an overarching strategic communications platform Poole and the Marketing and Strategic Communications Department have been developing and rolling out since Poole started at Westminster in 2015. The strategic communication platform builds a higher level of awareness so that prospective students and donors have Westminster College as top-of-mind. This platform includes the following:
- Building the communications infrastructure with internal and external communications policies
- Launch of Westminster Today in 2016
- Campus calendar enhancements
- New academic web pages
- Westminster Waves podcasts
- Launch and rollout of the Power in Purpose brand
- MyWC and Mobile App (more information coming soon)
- Social Media Core (SM Core)
- Ongoing training and support — joint training with IT
