Social Media on the Seaside

SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE SEASIDE

By Laura Trost  

Think the coasts of Tuscany and Liguria are only for tourists and beachgoers? They are also a rich source of inspiration for improving social media skills, as Laura Trost and classmates Toni Cruse and Weldon Boan found out.

After the Cinque Terre and Viareggio field learning experience embedded within our Social Media summer course, our class created three types of posts (on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook) promoting these landmarks. For my group, we had specific plans of what we wanted our posts to represent.

Firstly, we wanted the pictures to grab the audience’s attention immediately as they see it. Obviously a beautiful picture will catch the audience’s attention, but we also knew the best results would come from perfect word choice. We wanted our captions to be short and sweet and instantly promote exactly what we wanted to say. We decided to add a some spunk to this concept and include catchy phrases to use as hashtags. An example is #FUAtheitalianway, which we believed would be easy for an audience to remember.

One of the most important aspects of this assignment was to promote FUA efforts in offering educationally sound field learning experiences, and to get people involved in featured activities. Cinque Terre and Viareggio was just one of the amazing opportunities students experience through academic courses, and we wanted to shed the brightest light possible on this element. This was done by showing all aspects of the field activity, including local cuisine, architecture, and beautiful landscapes.

We also wanted to make sure our audience (including students, faculty, and prospective students) to feel a sense of connection even when they first see these posts. The goal was to show our viewers that there are diverse opportunities that are right within their reach. As the creators of these posts, a crucial aspect was engaging audiences eager to participate in these activities, and I believe we did a great job of finding a creative and fun way to do so.

Check out the work of the Social Media class on the Facebook pages of FUA's Student Life and Ganzo, Instagram, and Twitter.