COVID-19 made it clear that the social media team at Monash University was part of the front lines for audience information and feedback. In response to the pandemic, we worked alongside other members of the crisis comms team to create and amplify strategic content. We realised if we couldn’t bring our campus community together physically during this difficult time, we’d bring them together online.
The retention campaign, #MonashFromHome was born.
Our main goal was to showcase and strengthen a community that makes current students want to return, prospective students want to join, alumni proud to be part of, and staff proud to nurture.
How did we do it?
We decided to source and amplifying user-generated content (UGC) that reflected shared experiences, making everyone feel less isolated whilst increasing visibility, sharing the content through cross channel posting, through multiple accounts across the university, all united under one hashtag – #MonashFromHome.
The results!
Since launch, #MonashFromHome was used more 1484 times – and the number continued to rise after reporting of this figure.
That’s…
- 845 times on Twitter (including retweets)
- 95 times on Facebook
- 544 times on Instagram (not including Instagram Stories)
- 93.2% of the posts have a positive sentiment 😊
- The campaign has attracted international visibility:
- 74.6% of those who participated are based in Australia
- 11.1% are based in the U.S.
- 1.6% are based in the U.K.
The campaign received global recognition from Hootsuite Education for one of the top 5 universities in the world to respond positively to the COVID-19 outbreak. (see image below) you can find details of the campaign online and on their main Instagram profile
Mish Guru, a scheduling software provider for Instagram and Facebook also wrote an article covering the #MonashFromHome campaign.
