It is that time of year where we can have any type of weather rolling into Louisville. This week alone, we have had two snow days for class, meaning, I have had to be a bit creative with how to engage and cover material for all of my classes.
Originally, I was planning on inviting some amazing star former students from #Freberg15 to come to my social media class this semester (#Freberg16) to share tips, experiences, and best practices they learned while being part of the class. We got the news last night at 10:30 pm that UofL was going to be canceled today due to snow.
So, what would you do here in this situation? Record a lecture of established material to follow along with the syllabus? I could have done that, but that’s so one dimensional and traditional. Plus, I wanted to make sure my students had the opportunity to connect, engage, and ask questions to Tevin, Nick, Sophie, and Alan.
What did we end up doing?
We had a Snapchat panel session that was integrated with Twitter for the alums.
Yes, that is correct. We used Snapchat for class. We used Snapchat for a Q&A virtual chat session. This was because Nick (who is a BIG Gary Vaynerchuk fan) said that he has been inspired with his latest snaps on Snapchat and thought this would be a great idea. This was brilliant!
This was all set up pretty quickly, but I wanted to share with you all some of the things I learned through this process, what to do in case you want to do this for your class or team, and other lessons and best tips to note for the future:
Making sure everyone has the needed information
I use Twitter primarily for my social media class hashtag (#Freberg16), but I did have my Snapchat username of course listed on the syllabus. I wanted to make sure I shared this with my class on our Blackboard page as well as on Twitter. You want to give people a heads up for when the Snapchat and Twitter chat will be held.
I also wanted to make sure I was connected with the guests who were coming and speaking to the class on both platforms. Everyone was very family and aware of how to use Snapchat, so that was good to see. The only thing I had to do was make sure I was also at their level! 🙂
Be prepared for questions formatted for both Twitter AND Snapchat
With both platforms, make you do have some prepared questions so you can help guide the conversation. I used Adobe Post for the ones I shared with the class via Twitter, but I just talked to the camera with Snapchat.
I really like this app from Adobe because it’s not only user friendly, but I am able to brand the images with a hasthag (one of their features for shapes is a Twitter logo, but you can also add Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest – still waiting on Snapchat!) and save them for future edits/changes. You want to make sure to save these and have them ready to go before the chat.
I also make sure to have a statement summarizing the question on Snapchat for the guests and others to see here. Important to note here – both Twitter and Snapchat are all about short and snackable content, so you only have so many characters and seconds to get your content across. This way, the class and your guests know what question they need to answer via Twitter or Snapchat. It’s all about mutlitasking here!
Before the chat
Along with having your content formatted for both channels, you want to also make sure you do use both. I had a lot of questions scheduled out on Twitter that I also integrated into the conversations on Snapchat as well. You do want to have some takeaway points for the students to refer back to (ex. Twitter and creating a Storify of the conversations). Snapchats can be saved, but they do disappear, so this is something to note. There’s a lot of information coming in all at once, so you just want to do extra preparation ahead of time.
Before the chat as well, you want to give the students the opportunity to introduce themselves to the class before the chat began. Of course, you want to also do this as well.
Loved how each student (Tevin, Nick, and Sophie) did this in a creative way on Snapchat!
Individual Snaps and Snapchat Stories
I wanted to make sure to use both of these features when I was doing the virtual Snapchat sessions. It’s important to make sure to have a chance to chat with your guests individually, but also make sure you are sharing the content that is public for those who are following the story as well on Snapchat.
Have fun by showcasing your humor and personality
Snapchat is fun – you can be funny and entertaining, which brings forth a new side you can share with your students as well. For example, during the chat, Tevin and Nick both said that they ran out of coffee and had to make some more. I realized I did the exact same thing, which resulted in this snap. Again, this adds another dimension of personality to you as a professor. We are humans after all.
Definitely listen and be open to new opportunities with emerging platforms
I am extremely thankful to Nick for bringing this idea across. This was one of the best interactive and fun sessions I have had with students as a professor, ever! Loved the engagement, questions, and interactions the content brought forth from others on Twitter as well as Snapchat.
Ask your students what they think about these platforms and if they have an idea, listen and take notes. We can all learn from each other and today, I became not only a believer of Snapchat as a professor, but I know I will most definitely will be using this again for future classes.
Results
How did it turn out? This was BY FAR the best online engagement session I’ve had as a professor teaching social media ever. Period. Hands down. The numbers and engagement from our class hashtag were the highest I’ve seen and the numbers we saw on Snapchat were also pretty big for this being the first time we did this for class. Honestly, this is the first time I’ve done a virtual chat session at all with Snapchat, so I was extremely pleased with how it all turned out!
Why was this so successful? Because you are able to share conversations virtually with a group on your story feature on Snapchat, have one-to-one conversations with students, and download the updates and videos to share on Twitter. It really brought the chat to life and extended the conversations while putting a human virtual face on the guests for the class. Plus, Snapchat is the platform now for students to engage in conversations – so why don’t we go to a platform they are comfortable in?
In addition, the platform is very easy to navigate and get used to – but like any platform, you have to experiment around and see what works for you and what you need to keep in mind for the future.
From what I have heard from the guests and students so far, they felt it went over extremely well and they loved seeing their Snapchat numbers go up as well! Plus. I have to thank Stacy for sharing what we were doing in class for one of her social media presentations today. Thanks Stacy!
Again, major thanks to Alan, Sophie, Nick, and Tevin for the opportunity to be part of this new way to engaging students not only virtually, but also in case you have to cancel class due to a lot of snow coming your way. 🙂 Your insights, advice, and tips were really helpful for my class and I really do appreciate you all taking the time to speak to the class on both of these social media platforms. #VeryProudProf!
Hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
