Project
Each year, social posts with congratulatory messages are shared on the jumbotrons as part of the pre-Commencement show as the graduates arrive at Killian Court for the ceremony. In past years, the process for displaying posts was complex, clunky, and antiquated. MIT needed a new system that would streamline the process, allow for content curation, and have a more modern look and feel.
Methodology
Our social media team identified the elements they believed were must-haves for posting social media content during the pre-Commencement show:
- Pull real-time content from various social media platforms
- Curate the posts that would be featured
- Control the length of time each post is displayed
- Customize the background of the display
- Transition seamlessly to the new process
There was no in-house solution that provided all the features we required, but due to the growing practice of universities throughout the country displaying social media posts during commencement, there were a number of vendors offering this service at affordable prices. After assessing several vendors, we selected Tagboard as the best option and made the recommendation to Institute Events.
Results
Switching to Tagboard streamlined content curation and gave us more control over how posts were displayed. The ease of creating feeds made it simple to find the best content in real time and gave us the ability to make changes quickly and easily. Because Tagboard automatically pulled in posts with the #MIT2017 hashtag from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, we were able to share more social posts than in previous years. The updated visual display also had a fun, polished look.