Communications and Marketing during a pandemic, winter 2020

The Division of Communications and Marketing utilized all of its communications vehicles during the fourth quarter of 2020 to inform and educate its many audiences. These vehicles include news and feature stories posted to BingUNews, as well as myriad communications via Dateline, B-Line, social media and the University’s website.

Critical communications issues during this period included continuing to address the pandemic; COVID-19 testing of students, faculty and staff; moving all classes to remote learning once in October and a second time a week prior to Thanksgiving; and recovering from a malware attack on the campus network that required thousands of man-hours to restore files and develop a plan for moving forward in a more secure information technology environment.

A number of the communications included statements posted to President Harvey Stenger’s page:

Statements from President Harvey Stenger/others

• Oct. 2: a message from President Stenger to help flatten the curve
• Oct. 7: a message from President Stenger about moving to remote-only instruction
• Oct. 15: Indigenous Peoples Day
• Oct. 21: a message from President Stenger about returning to in-person classes
• Oct. 28: a message from President Stenger in support of student voting
• Oct. 29: a message from President Stenger about being safe
• Nov. 1: a message about civil and thoughtful political advocacy
• Nov. 17: a message about moving to remote-only instruction
• Dec. 2: a message from President Stenger about freedom of speech/crime victims center

Between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, in addition to the regular web updates made to University pages by the communications managers for each school, more than 50 updates were made to the Restarting Binghamton frequently asked questions webpage as the semester and COVID-19 circumstances evolved.

Communications managers continued to write for BingUNews and work with designers in Creative Services to produce well-written, compelling magazines for the University and individual schools. The Binghamton University Magazine, Harpur Perspective and Reaching Higher were all published this quarter.

Writing is already beginning to focus on stories that support the strategic priorities of the University’s comprehensive gifts campaign, which is in its silent phase. Priorities include fostering innovation between the campus and its partners to develop new products and services; supporting research, new programs and facilities; investing in interdisciplinary research through the Transdisciplinary Areas of Excellence; cultivating a diverse culture and supportive environment; attracting and supporting student talent; supporting students when and how they need it; recruiting and retaining exceptional faculty; and creating state-of-the-art facilities.

Supporting the University’s efforts to deal with the malware attack included working closely with Information Technology Services (ITS) to develop frequently asked questions, Dateline and B-Line messages and twice-daily updates to the president on the status of restoration. Through its role with the University’s Incident Management Team, Communications and Marketing also assisted in tracking infected laptops/desktops and providing that information to ITS to allow it to prioritize restoration/repair of devices.

Creative Services activities

Creative Services continued its work from remote locations, completing work for a number of departments across the University, including Commencement programs and slides for the virtual ceremonies, work for the Binghamton University Foundation, the School of Pharmacy Annual Report and upgrades to several websites.

Two major areas of focus were on Undergraduate Admissions, which is recruiting students in an unprecedented environment due to COVID-19, and the Binghamton University Magazine.

For Undergraduate Admissions, Creative Services developed an international brochure as well as travel pieces for New York state and out-of-state residents, and a transfer brochure. This work included development of e-brochures and PowerPoint versions for each of these audiences that can be used virtually by admissions staff. An admit brochure was also developed and printed to be mailed in acceptance packets.

In addition, Creative Services worked to develop Undergraduate Admissions Portals for athletics to manage athletics prospects and for credential review to assist counselors in making test-optional decisions. More than 20 email streams promoting virtual orientation, opens houses, visits and sessions were developed, and an Undergraduate Admissions student resource webpage was created.

Design of the Binghamton University Magazine was brought in-house for the first time, with three Creative Services designers working together with the editor to develop a cohesive and compelling magazine that draws readers in and reflects the excellence of Binghamton University. The Creative Services team also began a redesign of the back section of the magazine that will be completed in the next quarter.

Undergraduate Admissions enrollment marketing efforts

COVID-19 sparked a need for safe campus-visit opportunities. As a result, Communications and Marketing created two new virtual visit opportunities for prospective students:

• The 360 virtual tour allows students to take a panoramic photo journey through campus from the comfort of home. Bonus: It is accessible in China (unlike YouTube videos), and we created an email in English and Mandarin to reach Chinese prospective students and their families to tell them about this opportunity.
• Campus visitors can now build their own self-guided tour using their phones! A Google map shows their walking path, and when users arrive at a designated stop on the tour, they can listen to an audio clip voiced by a current student. Communications and Marketing partnered with Information Technology Services on this project. In the next few months, we will be adding physical signage at each of the stops.

COVID-19 and underrepresented students

The pandemic has unfortunately highlighted and worsened the gap between privileged and underserved students. Communications and Marketing helped Admissions reach these students by promoting a “Binghamton is for Everybody” webinar to both targeted students and feeder high schools that serve these populations.

• Binghamton Virtual Experience Days
  In addition to two virtual open houses in October and November, for which Communications and Marketing staff created a landing webpage, social media outreach and student videos, we also assisted in promoting Binghamton Virtual Experience Days. The goal of this week-long, virtual event held in December was to take a deeper dive into academics, student life and the application process. More details are needed at this stage in the cycle because prospective students are further along in the admissions process.
• Social media
  The Undergraduate Admissions Instagram and Facebook accounts continued to see growth this quarter (Facebook: +6.5%, Instagram: +4%). The pages have shifted to showing more user-generated content (UGC) based on takeaways from recently attended webinars. Current Binghamton students have been submitting their campus photos to us via Instagram direct messages and we have been sharing them in our stories and newsfeed. Our first UGC story received over 1,700 views in a 24-hour period. When students’ photos are shared, they then share them to their stories, reaching their followers.

Media and Public Relations activities

The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to make a major impact on University life, and we continue to push out important messaging to the campus community as information comes in. We posted news stories and produced Bearcat Chat videos for our social feeds that highlight how, where and when testing is taking place. When our testing numbers required that we turn to remote instruction, we pushed out important messaging to our social feeds and stories. Our audiences appreciated that we kept them well-informed of the changes to campus life. Fall 2020 has been a semester unlike any other, with the COVID-19 pandemic affecting campus life in myriad ways. Meanwhile, our #BingBringsIt posts have highlighted great things taking place within the Binghamton community.

Our TikTok account has seen a significant increase in followers and engagement thanks to our new student content creators. We are now able to push out fun, relevant content on a weekly basis and our numbers have skyrocketed as a result. We now have 2,000+ followers and our biggest post has garnered 350,000+ views. In addition, our content creators were featured in a local news story, as well as in a Bearcat Chat video and blog. This is big, as TikTok is one of the most popular social media networks among Gen Z.

We also created the University’s first Media Advisory group, consisting of alumni journalists from a wide variety of outlets including The New York Times, Buzzfeed and many more. The first meeting, hosted by President Harvey Stenger, was well attended and very productive. We expect this group to be a great resource as we continue to look for ways to extend our outreach.

Finally, we have produced a number of virtual tours highlighting various areas and schools within Binghamton, as well as a series of promotional videos for admissions purposes.

National/local news coverage

Total circulation numbers: Over 825 million

Nicole Hassoun, professor of philosophy and co-director of the Institute of Justice and Well-Being, has been featured in numerous publications, discussing several topics related to COVID-19 and more, reaching hundreds of millions of people. Total circulation: Over 289.6 million

• Yahoo.com, The Conversation and others: “How buying a coronavirus vaccine for everyone on Earth, storing and shipping it, and giving it safely will all be hard and expensive.”
• British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service Program: Science in Action on its Health Medicine Network: “How do you vaccinate 7.7 billion people?” Nicole Hassoun, an ethicist at Binghamton University and Kalipso Chalkidou, director of global health policy at the Center for Global Development, discuss five challenges we’ll need to overcome to vaccinate billions of people around the world.
• The Christian Science Monitor, Yahoo.com and other publications: “Why Hollywood turns a blind eye to China’s human rights abuses.”

Darcie DeAngelo, anthropologist and researcher from the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, was featured in The Conversation, The National Interest, Business Insider, Yahoo!.com, U.S. News & World Report and other publications for a story about how rats are cleaning up landmines and suspicions about the military in one of the world’s most war-torn countries. DeAngelo did her post-doctoral thesis on landmine rats. Total circulation: Over 187.4 million

Plaman Nikolov, assistant professor for economics, was featured in The Conversation, Yahoo!.com and other publications for an article highlighting how retiring young could affect brain functions. Total circulation: Over 137.3 million

Donald Nieman, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, was featured in The Conversation, Yahoo!.com, Mental Floss and other publications for his article discussing how the president’s term ends at noon Jan. 20. Total circulation: Over 108.8 million

Kathleen Sterling, associate professor of anthropology, was featured in Scientific American, The Smithsonian, Live Science, National Geographic and other publications for her insight on the Early Americas, and how the blending of hunting roles regardless of sex is not especially surprising. Total circulation: Over 37.7 million