Are your faculty part of your social influencer strategy?

Today's brands are no longer relying solely on traditional methods to market their brands. Instead, they're tapping into influencer marketing to increase their online presence and boost the awareness of their brand. Influencer marketing can and does work but only if you have the right strategy in place.
What you want is trusted influencers that can spread your message to a wider audience. Many organizations are turned off by the amount of time, effort, and money it takes to find the right people to serve as influencers. You need someone you can trust, who knows and understands the unique benefits of your university and someone who has a personal investment in your brand. And who better to serve as a trusted influencer than your own employees?

We often talk about universities and colleges who are doing stellar work on social media but faculty and staff influencers with a solid social media following can play an important role in your digital strategy. We recently came across this excellent blog from JISC (Our top ten higher education social media superstars of 2017) about the top 10 higher education social media superstars in the UK.

This list is full of influential, higher education pioneers who are using social media to engage better with students, increase their reach and effectively promote their field of expertise.

We thought we would mention some of our favorite UK influencers to help inspire you identify the social media superstars hidden on your own campus.

Pablo the Portsmouth library penguin

Pablo is one of few (possibly the only) library penguin with his own Twitter account! He spends his day doling out free advice to students and supplying them with important library updates. You can follow Pablo's Twitter here. 

The X ray doctor

Dr Vikas Shah from the University of Leicester has over 30,000 followers on Instagram under his persona, The X-ray Doctor. He posts interesting x-rays and posts challenging questions for his students! Follow him here

Study space App

Keith Brown, an e-learning and technology development officer from the University of Bath, built Study-Space, a private social media app, which is used by almost 1,000 University of Bath students. They can post messages, surveys and quizzes and host voting competitions in a private space that's just for their academic needs!

It's impressive to see the potential influence and reach that one faculty or staff member can have and it got us thinking, do you know who your social media gurus are and are they part of your wider digital strategy? Let us know in the comments below!