Channels

• Website (static posts and video)
• Social media (static posts and video) – Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube Magazine (print and digital versions)
• Digital signs

Frequency

• Weekly posts on social media and the website
• Monthly highlights on digital signs in the Leeds School building during the academic year
• Once a year in print magazine Business at Leeds

Goals

• Highlight the individuals who contribute to and embody the values of the Leeds School
• Leverage community stories to encourage pride in and raise awareness of Leeds
• Support student recruitment goals
• Help build Leeds’ reputation

Process

In fall of 2018, I began co-managing the social media strategy and content creation for Leeds School of Business’ social platforms and was asked to feature stories of undergraduate students on Instagram to assist with a recruitment strategy. I saw the potential to build this into a broader storytelling campaign that would also promote the Leeds brand and build its reputation. I created the hashtag #FacesOfLeeds, and we posted once a week throughout the academic year.

In 2019, we showcased Faces of Leeds as part of the revamp of the school magazine Business at Leeds. Shortly after, I assembled a team of colleagues to help expand the scope and depth of the campaign to other channels and create a branded look and feel for the content.

We decided to include stories of alumni, graduate students, faculty and staff (in addition to undergraduates) and increased the social media presence to include Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, in addition to Instagram. We built a website hub for long-form stories to live and to drive back to from social media.

I oversaw the project management from creation to launch in March 2020 and continue to co-manage the content creation and campaign strategy. Since we officially launched, the Faces of Leeds social posts have consistently attracted more engagement and views than all other posts across our social platforms.

The success of Faces of Leeds on social media has prompted additional opportunities to leverage the campaign for other promotions and initiatives. One example is for Leeds’ Business Minor. To boost awareness of the program while also celebrating a graduating class of students, we created an Instagram contest in which the winning student would be the first Business Minor featured on the Faces of Leeds campaign.