Advanced User Guide

Title

Advanced User Guide

Learn more about MyWorldAbroad's Global Nudge Social Media Campaigns

Discover the how-tos, benefits of, and philosophy behind our social media campaigns.

Reproduction rights for Social Media Campaigns are granted exclusively to schools with a site license for MyWorldAbroad.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

HOW TO GET STARTED

INTRODUCTION TO MyWorldAbroad NUDGING CAMPAIGNS

DETAILS ABOUT MyWorldAbroad CAMPAIGNS

CLOSING REMARKS

HOW TO GET STARTED

Social Media Quick Tips

Developing targeted social media strategies and rolling out campaigns can seem like a challenge, but by following the quick tips below, you’ll be on your way to maximizing your office’s social media presence. Our tips are useful for social media novices and seasoned users alike.

Steps in Setting Up a Year-long Campaign

  1. Review the Global Nudge campaigns and choose the one you wish to share. Campaigns and images can be viewed on this page.
  2. Download the Excel file containing the full year’s schedule, as well as a .zip file containing the associated images.
  3. Review content & decide whether you'll want to customize or alter the share schedule. We can work closely with you to review and revise content, and discuss cobranding options (see #4).
  4. FIRST STEP:CUSTOMIZE OUR TEMPLATES TO SOLIDIFY YOUR BRAND & MESSAGING: MyWorldAbroad is pleased to offer free design services to help your office customize the footers of Global Nudge Social Media Campaign images. Take a look at the following templates:
           
             Sample templates for study abroad offices
             Sample templates for career centers

    After reviewing these samples, submit your changes using one of the downloadable Word documents below:

            Change form for study abroad
            Change form for career centers

    Once you've submitted your changes, MyWorldAbroad will then create sample templates and forward them for your review. After approval, your customized footers will be applied to all relevant GNSMC images (128 of 300) and a .zip file containing all images for your selected campaign will be provided. This process can take 5 to 10 days. 

  5. PHONE CALL WITH MWA TO CONFIRM CUSTOMIZATION:
    1. Have a quick call with MyWorldAbroad to confirm your level of customization and walk through the loading process. 

  6. OPTIONS FOR CUSTOMIZING CONTENT: If you've determined that you wish to customize messages content, you'll have two options:
    1. If you will be manually loading messages one by one (onto Facebook or another platform), customizing directly in the Excel campaign spreadsheet is the best method. Make your changes in the “MASTER SHARE SHEET.”
    2. If you will be using a .csv file to preschedule bulk messages (via Hootsuite Pro or another social media management tool), then customizing directly in the .csv file is the best approach. MyWorldAbroad will provide you with .csv files that you can then customize. Once you've completed this manual customization of messages (if desired), then it's time to load.

  7. OPTIONS FOR LOADING MESSAGES: 
    1. Manually pre-load messages for up to six months directly into Facebook (or Hootsuite Pro), using the Excel campaign spreadsheet as your source. Using this approach, you can load up to six months of messages, one by one, in just an hour or two.
    2. Use Hootsuite Pro to preload messages using .csv files. For bulk pre-loading a Hootsuite Pro subscription ($120US/yr) is necessary. Many institutions will have this subscription in place already. On this platform, you can preload up to 350 messages at a time, and up to 350 per network. This means, for example, that you can load a 350-message .csv file to one network, a 175-message .csv file to 2 networks (such as FB and Twitter), or a 115-message .csv file to 3 networks, in order to fall within the 350-message-per-upload limit. See this guide which outlines the simple loading process: Hootsuite Instructions for Loading .csv Files & Images.

  8. SIT BACK AND RELAX: Start sharing! It’s that simple.

The Quickest Option: A Mini Campaign

Want the quickest solution? Try a mini campaign and choose from just 12+ key messages. Our ultra-simple mini campaigns include a selection of unscheduled, standalone messages and images to use at your convenience. Five separate mini campaigns have been designed for career centers and for study abroad offices. Use just one message or use them all – it's up to you. To access a .pdf file containing our mini campaign options, see these links: English version or French version.

INTRODUCTION TO 
MyWorldAbroad NUDGING CAMPAIGNS

Global Nudge Campaigns: Social Media Done Right

Social media, when used in a consistent and targeted way, can ‘nudge’ students towards achieving great things. Our brand new Global Nudge Social Media Campaigns (GNSMC) are fully developed, year-long social media share schedules loaded with content and messaging designed to encourage, inspire and inform your students. These dynamic and customizable campaigns contain inspiring messages, links to MyWorldAbroad advice, famous travel-related quotes, and more.

Most institutions find it hard to devote time and effort to developing a year-long social media campaign. But now, MyWorldAbroad has done the background work, taking the time to create a high-level share schedule that our test schools say is the most comprehensive and well-structured campaign they’ve ever seen.

In order to better serve your students, the campaign – which is available in different sizes and customized for study abroad and career centers – has been carefully designed to align with the school year cycle. This new product is a time-saving, powerful and easy-to-use addition to any social media strategy. Each campaign is fully customizable, and you’re free to use the full campaign, choose parts of it, and/or combine with any of your existing campaigns to encourage student engagement.

More Good Reasons
To Use Our Global Nudge Campaigns

By loading Global Nudge content into your feeds, you’ll be free of the guesswork and planning that goes into developing a complete social media cycle targeting global career skills and international experience. The Global Nudge is designed to raise awareness, amp up student engagement, and improve the student experience by helping them think long-term about their career prospects and international activities.

All Global Nudge content was developed using a system of cross-cultural advice vs. career advice. Depending on the campaign your office opts for, the balance between these two types of advice will vary. The Career Services campaign obviously focuses more heavily on career advice, although much of our content remains “globally-minded” in tone.

  • Cross-cultural advice focuses on helping students build a global perspective, travel abroad, deal with culture shock and re-entry shock, connect with locals abroad, and develop international skills.
  • Career advice focuses on helping students build professionally-geared international skills, understand the international job hunt, create standout resumes and LinkedIn profiles, and more.

The image below showcases how we balanced the mix between cross-cultural advice (the blue line) and career advice (the orange line) during the school year cycle.

The image below showcases an ALTERNATIVE APPROACH (which we did not apply) of delivering our mix between cross-cultural advice (the blue line) and career advice (the orange line) during the go abroad cycle (before, during and after going abroad).

The image below shows the target audiences for both approaches. Our campaigns focus on the School Year Cycle approach since it reaches a much wider student audience.

How Does the Global Nudge Approach Messaging?

As mentioned above, this is a partnered, year-long campaign to nudge students towards building cross-cultural skills and achieving their career goals. We have placed the students at the heart of the messaging strategy; the content has been developed to align with the school year cycle, and to nurture and engage students from day one.

Communication channels: Our target market of students is comprised of “digital natives” – young people who have never lived without social media. We’re certain that one or more departments, faculties and/or offices in your institution are already using social media regularly, and the Global Nudge campaign can utilize those existing feeds to further benefit students.

Tone of messages: When it comes to social media messaging, studies show that young people appreciate content that is: positive, relatable, humble, energetic, and genuine. We also know that young people appreciate content that is challenging, and which encourages them to work hard and take risks in order to succeed. Taking all this into account, in combination with our overarching goals, the Global Nudge social media campaign combines meaningful content with calls to action and inspiring standalone messages, maintaining a consistent voice that is professional, yet personable. The tone of messaging is challenging, yet supportive, acknowledging the difficulties of managing the student experience, but encouraging students to go beyond their expectations.

DETAILS ABOUT MyWorldAbroad CAMPAIGNS

Types of Content

Below you will find brief descriptions of the types of content that make up the Global Nudge share schedules, along with a screenshot of a sample campaign (see #1) displayed as an Excel file. The spreadsheet shows the full year cycle, including all the various types of content. At the bottom (#2), you'll notice that each individual type of content can also be accessed in its own tab.

  • MyWorldAbroad Content: As clients, you will already be familiar with our extensive selection of Quick Guides, quizzes and Stories from Abroad. The Global Nudge campaign includes links to all of this core content, as well as reminders to register for the site.
  • Link-free Messages: These encouraging, call-to-action-style messages embolden students to get engaged on campus, to stick to their international and career goals, to connect with mentors and other students, to go abroad, and to prepare for their future careers.
  • Worldly Wisdom: This collection of famous and not-so-famous quotes includes inspiring career and cross-cultural advice to help students stay motivated and broaden their horizons.
  • Holidays & Observances: These optional messages celebrate key national and international holidays and observances, often with reminders for students to think globally.

Details About Each Campaign 

Below you will find short descriptions of each of the campaign options. Download campaigns and images on this page.

  • Career Services (choose from 140 messages): Semiweekly, mostly Mondays and Wednesdays, focusing on links to MyWorldAbroad content and inspiring messages with a career angle, and Worldly Wisdom quotes. Some holidays and point periods are included, as well as invitations to register for MWA.
  • Study Abroad Light (choose from 245 messages): Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, focusing on links to MyWorldAbroad content, Worldly Wisdom quotes, and inspirational messages. Additional holidays and observances, point periods and invitations to register for MWA are also included.
  • Study Abroad Plus (choose from 405 messages): Messages six days a week, Monday through Saturday, focusing on MyWorldAbroad content as well as Worldly Wisdom quotes, inspirational messages, a wide range of holidays and observances, point periods and invitations to register for MWA.
  • French Campaign (choisir parmi 190 messages): Pour nos collègues francophones.

Monthly Themes and “Point Periods” to match the School Year Cycle

Over the school cycle, our messaging is built around monthly themes:

MyWorldAbroad has identified five key point periods over the course of the school year during which students are either beginning their studies, settling into new rhythms, or heading off for vacations. At these key points in the yearly cycle, students have a particular opportunity to make important decisions about going abroad and/or building international experience. During these point periods, the Global Nudge ramps up its amount of shared content. Current point periods are as follows:

  • August: to coincide with the back-to-school rush, during or just after frosh week
  • October: students have settled in, it’s time for them to revisit their international goals
  • December: students are on break, and have time to evaluate their progress, do some reading, and plan for the coming calendar year
  • March: around Spring Break, students need an extra push to keep them focused on the career component of international skill-building
  • June: the pre-summer push to keep students thinking about building global career skills all summer long

Customization Options

Our social media campaign is designed to be implemented by individual departments. For example, the same campaign can be implemented by a study abroad office, an international engineering program, and/or a Global Studies department. A career center might choose to further customize an existing campaign to suit its needs, or might even to set up a new Facebook or Twitter account for students specifically interested in global careers and international experience.

  • Schools or departments not wishing to share the full campaign can opt to share a single type of information – for instance, encouraging messages, MyWorldAbroad Quick Guides, or inspirational Worldly Wisdom quotes. Whatever your needs, MyWorldAbroad is here to help you customize or alter the share schedule.
  • Because our clients come from across North America, our campaigns contain US and Canadian holidays. Depending on your location, we can quickly and easily set up a US or Canada-focused holiday schedule within your chosen campaign.
  • Each month throughout the year-long schedule, we have included registration links for MyWorldAbroad. These links work as they are, but if you wish to make registration even easier, you may customize the registration messages, changing the linked URL from www.myworldabroad.com/register to "www.myworldabroad.com/ ADD YOUR SCHOOL’S DOMAIN NAME"
  • There is an option to customize all shared images to feature your school logo and a partnership message in the footer. A small additional fee applies for this type of customization. (View sample.)

CLOSING REMARKS

Why should the messages come directly from your school/office?

One school asked us why MyWorldAbroad doesn’t share the Global Nudge campaign, allowing client schools simply re-share and re-tweet content. There are several reasons for this:

  1. Direct messages have a greater impact: Messages that come directly from your institution (rather than re-shares) have added credibility and value for your students. Students are more likely to engage with the content, and – crucially – with related services on campus, when the message is sent directly from your account.
  2. Reliability & simplicity: In our experience, university/college administrators simply don’t have the time to consistently visit MyWorldAbroad social networks and re-share content on a daily basis. Institutional and departmental social media feeds are always more consistent when advisors/administrators/ambassadors take ownership of the content and ensure its release. In addition, preloading content is a more time-saving and efficient approach.
  3. Co-branding: MyWorldAbroad partners with client schools to inspire students and help them succeed in the modern workplace. When Global Nudge content appears as retweeted content, this branded partnership is lost, and students may be unaware that the inspiring message is actually coming from your institution/department in partnership with MyWorldAbroad.
  4. Dialogue creation: The goal of the Global Nudge is to raise awareness and promote student action. The Global Nudge also aims to open the flow of communication between your department and the students you serve. For this purpose, messages have greater impact coming directly from your department.

We’re delighted to be able to share this high-quality product exclusively with MyWorldAbroad client schools, and will be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

Looking Closer at Nudging Theory: Why Nudge Students?

Sometimes all it takes is a simple reminder or encouraging word to keep students on track with their go-abroad and career goals. Without such reminders, the demands of student life can become overwhelming, drawing attention away from high-value cross-cultural opportunities –and this is where The Global Nudge comes in. 

Nudging has its origins in behavioral science, the study of why and how people make decisions and take actions. Nudges are small interventions, encouraging a target audience to take one or more specific actions by presenting them as the “path of least resistance.” When it works well, nudging removes barriers to action. In the case of the Global Nudge, it will remove barriers between students and their study abroad goals, and will challenge the mental roadblocks that tell them study abroad is “just not for them.”

We want to partner with client schools to make study abroad and international experience the path of least resistance for students. Of course, from MyWorldAbroad’s perspective, it is the path of least resistance towards future success. International experience and an understanding of its professional applications are crucial in the new world economy, and no student should graduate without international skills.

Unlike marketing-based nudging programs, the Global Nudge revolves around building long-term engagement, changing perceptions about the difficulty of going abroad and creating an understanding of the direct relationship between international experience and career success.

We’re eager to see this campaign in action: Nudging in the context of higher education is a relatively new approach, and a nudging plan of this scale, promoting cross-cultural skill development and career integration has never before been undertaken. We’re proud to be at the forefront of this burgeoning trend.

The following links provide support for the concept of social media and nudging as tactics for increasing student engagement, as well as some ideas on how to approach it. These are just a few of the many resources available on this topic.

Key Takeaways

Now is the time to build a global career focus into your social media strategy. With MyWorldAbroad’s Global Nudge Social Media Campaigns, our objective is to make it simpler for your institution or office to encourage students to go abroad and to train them on the fundamental skills and strategies for going international.

Research shows that encouraging, inspirational and consistent social media messaging is powerful, especially for the generation currently attending institutions of higher education in North America. We want to help you make the most of this, by making a year-round, targeted share schedule accessible and easy to use.

The bottom line is that the Global Nudge saves time, by providing you with a ready-made schedule of fully edited, fully tested messages. The option of pre-loading messages to social media makes sharing year-round simpler than ever before, and we hope you’ll take advantage of this great service.