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Southern Michigan University (SMU) is a prestigious institution of higher education and operates multiple social media accounts. Each week, they typically plan out their content and then determine what the objective of each piece should be. They syndicate each post to their Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn pages. The primary strategy for growing their social media channels involves holding weekly contests to win gift cards, which anyone can win, including those not affiliated with SMU. Otherwise, they mainly post casual updates with user-generated content like funny lines overheard on campus or curated content–social media posts published by individual colleges on campus. The university’s stated goal for the social media strategy is to increase the number of alumni making donations on the university website. Sometimes SMU gets complaints from people on social media. SMU’s approach is to wait 48 hours before responding, so complainers have time to cool off or forget the issue. When handling negatives, they often go back-and-forth publicly on the social media page. When people post positive things about the university, SMU doesn’t respond because their efforts are better spent dealing with negatives. SMU has 3 part-time student workers who alternate days they run social media accounts, which gives the channels a different unique tone and style each day. The team measures its success by looking at the total number of followers on each channel each week (having more followers than the previous week is evidence that the social media strategy is working effectively).

Is there anything about SMU’s social media strategy that concerns you? Using a numbered list, briefly describe each problem you see with their strategy and a solution that shows your understanding of best practices.