College administration in a global pandemic

In August of 2020, the University of Kansas welcomed back approximately 20,000 students, staff, and faculty members. As the university struggled to navigate constantly evolving policies and procedures, mandatory Covid-19 testing, and a redefined classroom experience, the need for data-backed insights from digital intelligence became clear.

Bita’s team was tasked with providing daily insights to the university’s Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs and Economic Development to allow them and other campus leaders to gauge public perception, identify harmful misinformation, and understand how the key audience perceived communication from university officials. This required data not just on the University of Kansas, but on their competitors.

In order to be successful, Bita needed to “quickly identify valuable insights and effectively communicate them to high-level leadership in a concentrated form.”

With real-time insights, flexible data visualization, and integrated monitoring of the top 100 schools in higher education, Brandwatch allowed them to do just that.

Getting out of the weeds

As one half of the Social Media team, Bita spends a large portion of her day managing the university’s community in real time. In the midst of the pandemic, Bita’s team found themselves struggling to avoid tunnel vision. They were so focused on the day-to-day management of the ever-changing situation, they weren’t able to see trends or issues evolving outside of the virus.

Brandwatch offered a solution. By running a combined analysis of both mention volume and trending topics, Bita’s team is able to understand which key areas their audience is focused on from a wider lens. This can be done on an ongoing basis, any time the team wants to get a broader view.

“Vitriolic comments tend to stick out like a sore thumb, but it’s interesting to see that sometimes those aren’t the largest issues of the day,” Bita says. This approach allows Bita’s team to take a birds-eye view of how their university is being perceived and a more balanced approach to the way they think about crises.

Critical thinking and efficiency

With Brandwatch’s varied functionality, including Facebook and Instagram insights, email alerts, exclusion filters, and more, Bita’s team is able to drill down into the data they need. This has helped her team think more critically about the conversations happening online, and how they shape public perception of the institution.

Bita has noticed an increase in efficiency since using Brandwatch for Administration. By having access to a larger and higher quality data set than they’ve had before, her team has been able to understand what their audience really cares about and adjust their social content strategy and tactics accordingly.

An insightful future

While the university experience evolves and responds to the coronavirus, Bita plans to continue using Brandwatch to help her colleagues across the organization.

When asked what she hopes to do beyond the pandemic, she shared that she wants to “build volume and sentiment metrics to our list of KPIs for certain marketing campaigns. We also intend to use Brandwatch as a research tool to keep an eye on what our competitors and industry are up to.”