#reslifemu

[jessszramiak-blog]

ORL Shines Bright Like a Diamond on Social Media

While the rest of our classmates were trekking across Milwaukee to meet with their clients, Emily and I walked the short distance to Carpenter for our weekly meeting   with Sean. I've really started to have a greater appreciation for meeting with Sean in person rather than communicating over email. There's so much more to be said in person and allows for us to get direct responses from Sean. Besides, if we didn't meet with Sean in person we never would have gotten on the subject of Disney World. 

On another note, we do have some breaking news: ORL's Pinterest boards are being published! After getting Sean's approval of the pins that we have already made, the secret boards are now becoming public. In addition to the three boards already published, each residence hall will have a board with the hopes of posting room layouts and pictures. I'm most excited for ORL's presence on Pinterest because now I have an excuse to be on Pinterest during the day and can't wait to help in building dream hall rooms for incoming students! 

This week we also started working with Sean on planning the Residence Hall spotlights, which is part of ORL's current student housing fair. From March 18-22 we will feature a different residence hall each day. Sean thought that spotlighting the Residence Halls in alphabetical order would prevent favoritism of certain Halls. Each day we will post the featured hall of the day, floor plans, hall fun facts and a link to the halls website. We want this to be a fun and interactive campaign to get students involved in their housing selection process. 

The only problem with our Residence Hall spotlight week? Sean will be out of town  for the first two days of the campaign. Although my throat started closing up a bit when Sean let us know that he wouldn't be there for our Monday meetings because he will be meeting with Mickey Mouse (FYI, he'll be in Florida for a conference), I am confident that Emily will be able to tackle the Residence Hall spotlight week. This is one of the biggest parts of our campaigns and where we can really let our work shine. And definitely brighter than a diamond. I know super cheesy and the worst pun ever, but this is what no snow day during midterm week has done to me. 

[jessszramiak-blog]

The new and improved ORL Social Media!

I'm not going to lie, Emily and I have one the best clients for two reasons:

Our client is located right on campus, walking distance from classes, apartments etc. 

We have a client who is open to change and our suggestions and helps with executing our ideas. 

Sean, Emily and I decided that meeting on Mondays at 1:00 pm works best for all of us. Why? Because it's a nice break in between a day filled with classes and helps Emily and I write our weekly posts. But enough about our meetings, it's time to get into the fun stuff. 

ORL SOCIAL MEDIA GOT A MAKEOVER 

Unfortunately, Clinton Kelly and Stacy London weren't there to assist us in this makeover. But thanks to the help of Sean and Mykl Novak the Residence Life social media pages are looking better than ever! With a new avatar on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube social media users are now able to see firsthand that these accounts are the official MU Residence Life. 

In addition to the new avatar, there is also a cover photo uploaded on all of the social media accounts. I think that the new photos on social media look great and will really help Res Life to gain new followers. 

Updating ORL's social media photos and changing the Twitter handle? DONE. But our work isn't over yet. Yesterday at our meeting with Sean he asked Emily and I if we could draft up some sort of 'press release' to help launch the new ORL social media pages. Why? This new an improved social media campaign is great and we want all of Marquette to be aware of it. Emily and I are currently in the process of drafting a release so stay posted. 

Here are some other things we covered in our Monday meetings with Sean: 

Pinterest: Let's face it, if you're a girl and sitting in class like I am right now you're checking your email, Facebook and have a tab open for Pinterest. That is why we have created and our launching a Pinterest page for ORL. We decided that our Pinterest will have boards with topics such as room decorations, storage space for Residence Halls, and easy/healthy meals to make in your room. Sean brought to my attention the 'secret boards' on Pinterest. I had no ideas these existed but apparently you can create boards that you can post whenever you want without anyone knowing. I would should you our secret boards but then it won't be a secret. 

Begin to schedule Tweet/ Facebook posts for Sophomore Housing : The next weeks are going to be the busiest for Sean and the ORL team. With housing fairs, residence tours, and questions constantly coming in from parents and students this is a great time for the social media pages to be launching. Emily and I hoped to create social media accounts for ORL for students and parents to turn to for all ORL questions. Why? Because ORL can help answer all of your housing questions. With the Twitter and Facebook pages, we hope to interact and answer students questions, similar to what Tim does with the Marquette account. And especially with the new look, who wouldn't want to stop by the ORL pages? 

Get #mureslife trending on all social media platforms: With all of the social media pages for ORL and especially within the Marquette community thousands of hashtags exists. Sean expressed to Emily and I that he wanted to create a hashtag  that could be used on all of the social media platforms. We decided on #mureslife, something that will work across the border and easy for followers to remember.

In other ORL news, check out the wonderful week ORL had on social media! Not only did we gain over 10 new followers and fans on Twitter/Facebook, the number of retweets and mentions of ORL was also high. Seeing little things like this really make me feel good for the work that we're helping Sean with. I can't wait to see what the rest of these plans will do for ORL's social media!