Andrea Honaker holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from West Virginia University and spent the first dozen years of her career in the newspaper industry, where she took on roles as a copy editor/page designer, lifestyles reporter and education reporter. In 2018, she transitioned to work in higher education by becoming a digital content specialist in the Marketing Communications department at Mercer University. Her primary duties are managing content for the university’s main social media platforms and writing feature stories for the university’s news sites.
What you’ll learn about in this episode:
- How Andrea’s career path led her to working as a digital content specialist at Mercer University, and what she loves about her role
- What Andrea’s role entails, and how she is instrumental in helping developed a clear, focused message and great stories to share
- How Andrea and the team brainstorm new content that falls into separate “content buckets”, and what kinds of content they create
- Why fun and nostalgic posts have helped break up “heavy” content and connect well with alumni
- How the team tracks their analytics, and what specific metrics they focus on to determine the success of a post
- What impact the outbreak of the global pandemic has made on the content the team has been creating, and how they’ve rolled out new tools and resources during the crisis
- Why striking the right balance between focusing on the pandemic and sharing less stressful content has been vital
- How Andrea and the team plan out content for the future, without getting too far out so that their messaging can stay nimble
- How the team draws inspiration for their content, including from a Facebook group called #HigherEdSocial
- Why one of the things Andrea loves about her job is the ability to learn from other experts
