Here in the Division of Student Affairs, we focus on creating experiences for students outside of the classroom. Our social media presence allows us to showcase what we do for University of Arkansas students and provide information about important topics, such as wellness, mental health and ways to get involved on campus.
Our most recent campaign involves sharing students’ COVID stories. We have highlighted several students who shared why they got vaccinated. Students explained in their own words why it was important to them to get vaccinated and encouraged others to also get the vaccine. The student’s story and a picture of them were posted, along with information about the University of Arkansas’s vaccine incentives, encouraging student to get vaccinated.
“By sharing student’s stories on social media we hope that other students will see them and be encouraged to get vaccinated themselves,” said Scott Flanagin, executive director of communications for the Division of Student Affairs. “Some of these student stories are very emotional. They show the toll the pandemic has had on people’s mental health, families and more.”
Instagram is the platform we use the most to connect with students (find us @uarkstudents). It’s the perfect way to share pictures of many of the events that happen around campus. We also use the Instagram stories feature to share much of the information. promote events and highlight programs, especially from other accounts. Some of our favorite Instagram accounts to follow, and we think you’ll enjoy too are @foodonthehill_ar, @arkansasunion, @uparkansas, @uarkstudentmedia, @uark_mc.
@uparkansas presents upcoming events in their seven committee areas, covering cultures and concepts, concerts, art, activities, and more.
“We plan a diverse array of programming to give every U of A student an opportunity to engage in campus life,” said Sophie McAdara, vice president of public relations for University Programs. “Our social media will also highlight students that participate in our events and engage with the community.”
While Instagram is our most used platform, we also have Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok. Instagram allows us to reach more students, while Facebook lets us get our information out to more alumni and to parents of current students. On Twitter, we reshare important information about events happening on campus. We have tried to make it easy for everyone to find and us and recently changed our Instagram, Twitter and TikTok accounts to all have the same handle – @uarkstudents
A Twitter account we think you’ll really like is @arkansasunion.
“We’ve uniquely positioned our Twitter voice to be both conversational and informative,” said Robert Stagni, director of the Arkansas Union. “We follow trends and memes and help apply them to our campus as appropriate. We provide helpful information ‘with a twist’ that keeps students engaged and entertained. If we make it apparent to our audience that we’re having fun, they tend to have fun with us.”
TikTok is a brand-new space for us. And in true Razorback fashion our first video was a clip of our mascot Tusk outside the Arkansas Union. It is used by a lot of our incoming students, and more and more older folks as well. We think that TikTok will be a place for us to have fun and share some good information, so stay tuned!
Many of the departments and programs in the Division of Student Affairs are using social media. You will find links to those accounts on our list of offices webpage.