Marquette University's Effective Digital Efforts

The following is a case study from COM 60111* – SEMINAR IN STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION (3 CREDITS) at Purdue University for the Master of Science in Communication.

*This course surveys the theories and processes of strategic communication and its practice by business, government, politicians and nonprofits – in domestic and international arenas. It also emphasizes the application of theory to provide an in-depth understanding of planning, executing and evaluating strategic communication plans.

Were Marquette University's digital efforts effective?? Explain your argument thoroughly, supporting it from the reading and case study.

Marquette University’s digital efforts are very effective.

“Marquette University’s strategic social media plan and observing the social media strategy and tactics, four key topics emerged: engagement, dialogue, bridging of information, and community” (Stageman et al, 2013, p. 20).

Stageman et al objectively showcases Marquette met these strategies with accolades including the 12th most popular Foursquare among universities, top five Pinterest in higher education, recognition by the Milwaukee Business Journal as top 20 social media brands in the area, Twitter ranking of top 10 most influential university accounts and Forbes ranked the university as the most active Twitter user among colleges and universities.

The university did not see a gap between how they are currently seen and how they want to be seen. Instead, the communication strategy was “reinforcing the existing reputations of stakeholders if those are broadly in line with how the organization wants itself to be seen” (Cornelissen, 2017, p. 110).

“Marquette University’s social media strategy was designed to appeal to each group of stakeholders, including prospective students, current students, and alumni” (Stageman et al, 2013, p. 7).

The university also set a measurable objective to achieve interaction with five percent of the audience within a given channel in any month and to reach 35,000 people on all University accounts.

“Strategy embodies more than plans and tactics, which often have a more immediate and short-term focus. Instead, strategy concerns the organization’s direction and positioning in relation to stakeholders in its environment for a longer period of time” (Cornelissen, 2017, p. 110).

Using Sprout Social and understanding that “social media is naturally high interaction and low risk (Stageman et al, 2013, p. 19), allows the university to work towards that measurable objective.

Starting on Page 15, there is an evaluation of Marquette University's social media adoption. Are there other metrics you would recommend Marquette use?

“Although important in terms of numbers, reliance on quantitative data does pose a limitation. Even though the team does gather informal feedback, the marketing and communication team should integrate formal qualitative measures to ensure a more balanced analysis of its social media activities” (Stageman et al, 2013, p. 16).

Marquette needs to focus on the overall outcome of the interactions. They need to define if a social media interaction is positive, negative, or neutral. While a simple inquiry is a neutral interaction, Twitter dialogue in response to Father Wild’s retirement was positive and alumna’s criticism of fair labor practices was negative.

In a qualitative sense they need to understand the pulse of stakeholders to make sure they are providing the best outreach for situations as they arise. While the overall quantitative metrics provide a “strategy” the individual interactions represent the “tactics” to maintain the university’s marketing and communications goals.

What was successful that you might be able to use at your own job or company?

“Many practitioners are using the new media in the same ways they used the old—as a means of dumping messages on the general population rather than as a strategic means of interacting with publics and bringing information from the environment into organizational decision-making” (Grunig, 2009 as cited in Stageman et al, 2013). This is exactly how our organization uses social media and a major success we might be able to use is two-way dialogue. We tend to think of engagement and interaction as an afterthought. Our organization tends to think because of its stature within its industry that it will automatically make us “influencers” who can showcase any piece of information and rely on others to amplify it. Our only key performance indicator is mentions, but we do not consider who our audience is for each social media post or tweet.

What is your analysis of the Ask Father Pilarz Twitter initiative? Do you think Marquette University could have done something else to make the initiative more successful?

Marquette University simply forgot who the stakeholders were when they enacted the initiative.

“Cigelske notes that timing might have been off since the first effort took place during midterm week and the second was right after spring break during March Madness” (Stageman et al, 2013, p. 19). If a key stakeholder is students, then having this initiative during midterm week or March Madness is a major oversight. Marquette University could have made the Ask Father Pilarz initiative more successful by including this context into the plan, it could have been centered around study tips for the midterms or basketball predictions for March Madness. If they wanted to get a different stakeholder group, they could have focused traditional marketing tactics to engage alumni into joining the initiative.

Do you think Marquette University created emotional connections with Marquette's stakeholders? What do you think would be an effective (but new) marketing strategy to use on a social media platform for Marquette University? Include the message you'd create, the platform you'd use and the rationale for that platform.

Marquette University created emotional connections with stakeholders during National Marquette Day, Father Wild Retiring and Welcome to Marquette. These tactics build a sense of community among stakeholders and unites them under the Marquette University mission.

An effective (but new) marketing strategy would be using the TikTok stitch feature (https://support.tiktok.com/en/using-tiktok/creating-videos/stitch). If not exclusively, this specific functionality is most popular on that platform and not a platform mentioned in the Stageman study.

The university band could play the fight song and then using the stitch feature invite alumni to pick up an instrument to play along, they could have current students sing along, and they could have prospective students react.

This connects the community and provides individuals an outlet to shine if they are particularly good with an instrument or a talented singer. This connects the community and provides individuals an outlet to shine if they are particularly good with an instrument or a talented singer.

“Strategic thinking involves predicting or establishing a desired future goal state, determining what forces will help and hinder movement toward the goal, and formulating a plan for achieving the desired state (Cutlip et al, p. 309).

Using the stitch feature on TikTok would be a good tactic to compliment Marquette's social media strategy.

"To sum up how important the idea of community is within the Marquette social media strategy, Cigelske put it simply, “In whatever I do with social media, the big goal is to communicate the message that you’re part of a large family at Marquette and social media really helps to reflect that message" (Stageman et al, 2013, p. 30).

References

Cornelissen, J. (2017). Corporate communication. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Henry, E. (2008). Are Investors Influenced by How Earnings Press Releases Are Written? Journal of Business Communication, 45(4), 363-407.

Cutlip, et al.: Chapter 12

Stageman, A., & Berg, K. (2013). Friends, fans, and followers: A case study of Marquette University’s use of social media to engage with key stakeholders. Case Studies in Strategic Communication, 2, 3-34.