Biological & Environmental Sciences Department Social Media Intern

Austin Eshmont

Longwood University

Spring Semester

2022

Longwood University's Biological & Environmental Sciences Department is an organization that works diligently to successfully accomplish their goals. The department is assembled with a wonderful set of faculty that have collectively supported me throughout my internship. This social media position gave me both strength and knowledge in time management, adaptability, interpersonal skills, initiative, conflict management, technological skills, writing skills, effective communication, and many other characteristics.

Throughout this past semester, I worked to promote the Biological & Environmental Sciences Department to incoming students, prospective students, and the Longwood community as a whole. Alongside my internship supervisor, Dr. Sankar, we were able to formulate a departmental approach and strategy for effective reach in community engagement. While a majority of the content that I generated during my internship was diverse, there was an overall theme to the promotional aspects of this semester that can be seen through many of the components that I fabricated. Ultimately, this internship provided me with the chance to creatively utilize the skills that I have learned throughout my time as a student in the Longwood Communication Studies Department.

My Biological & Environmental Sciences Department internship began with an outlook on the social media presence that they already had in place: Facebook. This was a viable starting point as I began my journey by creating four more platforms for the department: Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok and Youtube. As I managed and maintained their social media platforms centered around University-appropriate content, I applied both my photography and videography skills when applicable to accompany posts that I was able to publish throughout the semester.

Website

Contact Cards

The QR codes that are seen were designed online in an attempt to attach them to the contact cards seen here. The contact cards were a promotional effort both in buildings on-campus, buildings off-campus, and through social media to raise followers and interaction.

In order to appeal to these certain target audiences, I knew that design and structure needed to attract the audiences' eyes. Keeping influence of these audiences in mind, selecting the right layout was significant to the impact of these contact cards. After substantial research on which software corresponds with our department's promotional approach, the corresponding database was selected.

There were many minute details in these contact cards that were carefully thought out. The election to place all of the content in the center of the cards was intentional. Their were many features that were deliberated upon before placed into the work. The text, for instance, was very difficult to select because of the professionalism that the letters had to contain. The symbols also had to correspond with the overall colored theme of the design, and the department's tag had to be introduced in order to emphasize to the audience which organization can be found on social media. Additionally, the department being in the middle of the card was needed for the audience to recognize the identity of this organization..

Once these contact cards were created and approved, they were sent out by my supervisor to be constructed into stickers. These stickers were then placed in the planned locations and distributed to countless individuals to spread across our community.

After the five platforms were designed and the accounts were organized, I knew that in order to reach the department's target audience of students, both incoming and prospective, as well as others, all of this information should be allocated into one place.

After selecting my software, I knew that when designing the website that anything chosen to represent the department, whether it was phrases, images, or videos, needed to reflect this department's reputation. Thus, when determining illustrations, I chose to appeal to the audiences' compassions. When writing out the department's mission statement, I chose to appeal to the audiences' logistical reasoning. I believe both of these factors created a strong presence for the Biological & Environmental Sciences department as a whole and established a professionalism that was alluring.

Presenting the social media bar right at the top of the home page was a principal decision in the direct communication of these platforms. By having these icons in the audience's view right away, there is a clear determination in increasing engagement.

To reveal information about the department, the 'Our Faculty' and 'Our Students' tabs were set up to convey to the audience who the individuals behind the organization are. The 'Contact Us' tab was created in order to give others a chance to connect with the department.

Social Media Platforms (TIKTOK)

Videos & interviews

While monitoring these social media platforms, I was also able to spend the semester collecting interviews of the faculty members and students that make a tremendous impact on the Biological & Environmental Sciences Department. These interviews were devised with the intent of introducing the people who contribute to its success.

After developing open-ended response questions that I believed would bring interesting answers to the table, I was able to schedule the interviews, film the interviews, and upload the interviews to edit. Amongst erasing the awkward pauses or fumbled dialogue, clipping the videos, creating animated images to place between the film, generating introduction and conclusion slides for each video, and merging these pieces together, these videos were intricately developed.

The video seen here is an example of one of the many interviews that were conducted this semester. The questions were chosen in an attempt to highlight what brought the faculty member to love the field of science, what brought them to Longwood, and why they stand beside the department, with their heads held high. By placing these videos on both the department’s YouTube Channel as well as on their website this will give students and other individuals looking for information an accurate representation of the organization, their members, and their achievements.

Over the semester, I continuously updated the social media platforms to expand engagement within just a couple months. On Twitter, I had 1,926 profile visits, more than 400 impressions, and a 3.9% engagement rate. On Instagram, I received more than 90 followers, with one of my posts reaching more than 60 accounts just by itself. On TikTok though, a lot of progress was made in marketing this department effectively. Biological & Environmental Sciences received more than 400 followers. These platforms are continuously gaining followers and interactions, and the department is continuing to share their messages.

On Valentines Day, I used the holiday to my advantage; the department was heavily promoted through the TikTok seen here. This video has been watched by more than 400 individuals and was first produced inside of an anatomy classroom. After first filming the heart dissections, I then attached other rolls of film of the professor's teachings to unify the overall balance of the video.

Although this video was not taken on Valentines Day, the publication of this video on that specific day was thoughtfully articulated. The hashtags that were utilized in this video were also carefully selected. These decisions were made by considering which hashtags were already pertaining to the public. The audio was another additional factor in the success of this particular TikTok. Although, many of the other TikToks' created and posted to the department's account also received more than 300 views.

Hand-off Guide

This semester, I developed an abundance of knowledge-- whether it was learning new skills from the content that I was creating or gathering or configuring solid ideas to lead the Biological & Environmental Sciences Department in the right direction for their campaigning. There were many projects and experiences that gave me the ability to learn new things. While it took me a couple months to master some of these skills, I created a hand-off guide to help future interns with content, application, and development of future programs.

There were four sections to this hand-off guide. The first section contained the login information to the social media accounts and other accounts that have been used to generate content. The second section detailed the specific components that were necessary to create another interview video and general information on how to create a video. The third section included analytics from my semester's performance as an intern and statistics regarding the success of the platforms. The fourth section looked at engagement tactics as well as features that were used to create the website.

This guide will be very helpful to future interns. It contains guidelines for managing the program and suggestions and fantastic ideas that could be used in future endeavors.

These three images were taken inside and outside of the Biological & Environmental Sciences Department's home base on campus: the building Chichester. Being able to interactively connect with both the Greenhouse featured here and the Herbarium found in Allen Hall was an excellent benefit to my internship. Fun Fact: The Herbarium is home to more than 75,000 species of plants and is the second largest in the state, surpassed only by Virginia Tech!

This internship was a highlight to my time at Longwood University. I was glad that I was able to accomplish so much while I was there, and I was proud to be able to finish off my time at Longwood working to promote part of the University. I appreciate all of the professors that were able to teach me so many new skills. I appreciate the faculty members that I have met this semester and the support that they have given me moving forward. Thank you to those professors, and thank you, Longwood.

Contact

I'm always looking for new and exciting opportunities. Let's connect.

austin.eshmont@live.longwood.edu

804-672-2266