Virginie Bodin, in charge of digital communication at the prestigious Sorbonne University, reveals the establishment’s social media strategy: formats, objectives, tools, etc.
–
The Sorbonne University account on Instagram.
–
Can you present yourself and your missions within Sorbonne University?
My name is Virginie Bodin and I am in charge of digital communication at Sorbonne University. I am in charge of our digital strategy and the definition of the editorial line of our social media spaces. I am part of the communications department, which has 15 people. The digital division where I work has 5 employees, and there are 2 of us managing social networks. I work with a community manager, who takes care of the operational management of the communities.
What is the stake for Sorbonne University to be present on social networks and more specifically on Instagram?
It’s a recent university so we need to promote the brand on social networks. To do this, we are implementing a strategy aimed at promoting the training and research that we offer. But we also seek through our actions to compete with other national or international universities, and to highlight our ability to integrate societal challenges (AI, environment, etc.). Universities also have a role to play in communicating about innovation!
Can you explain to us how your editorial strategy is organized on Instagram?
We publish about ten stories per week, which concern several themes:
- Practical information for our audiences, students, etc.
- Highlighting highlights and common events.
On the feed, we post 3 pieces of content per week. They are dedicated to:
- Sharing student portraits: a great way to inspire and enhance our community,
- Promote our different campuses: the university is in fact organized into 5 main campuses, but also has 26 other sites in France,
- Highlight the work environment and show its qualities to students or future students.
We are active on all the other formats that we use in a more exceptional way: IGTVs, Reels, Guides… We are on a permanent test and learn strategy, and we do not hesitate to try new things, new channels, or new content.
You use the Swello platform to manage your social networks. Why this choice ?
I made the choice of the social media tool Swello for 2 main reasons. First of all, to have a tool for centralizing all my posts within an editorial calendar. When a community manager joined the team, the choice of Swello was confirmed, especially for its collaborative features.
We currently manage 4 social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram) with several profiles per communication channel, hence the interest of having a tool to centralize our actions.
Swello is a French actor, it is also an important element in our choice. If necessary, we need support from local teams who are attentive to our needs and receptive to customer needs. The support is very responsive, again, which was important in choosing a partner.
I was also able to appreciate the simple and intuitive side of the tool. It was essential that the people I work with easily made it their own. The interface is really designed for a quick start.
Can you describe your use of Swello’s Instagram features?
We obviously use native Instagram programming for photos and videos. This allows us to have an editorial calendar and identified publication niches. Another interesting feature: the preview of the feed, which allows you to have an overview. We also appreciate the Quality Coach, which allows us to analyze potential errors on a job, as well as a predictive analysis of its impact.
Finally, to analyze our actions, we obviously use the statistics of stories and posts, as well as the reports available on the platform. They allow us to understand which content is the most effective, and how to improve our strategy.
What does Swello bring you on a daily basis?
The possibility of scheduling posts allows us to have an editorial calendar and therefore to keep a constant rate of publication on all the social networks that we manage. The collaborative dimension of the tool saves us time, and gives us the opportunity to work together on our different presences.
Regarding statistics, Swello allows me, thanks to the reporting part, to justify my actions by analyzing my publications. It is impossible to do without statistics to know what works best and Swello helps me a lot to measure my actions, in order to improve our strategy according to our results.
Swello also allows us to be attentive to potential crises, and to anticipate them. Thanks to alerts, we can indeed be warned as soon as our brand is mentioned, and therefore be reactive to defuse a possible problem.
More generally, Swello brings us undeniable time savings compared to our use of native publication and reporting tools for this type of social platform.
A tip for managing your social networks well?
You have to be curious about trends and new features! Everything goes very fast, and it’s important to experiment with all the new publishing experiences that the platforms offer. You have to test, and see what works… or not!
–
Receive all digital news by email
–
