Five students launched a creative social media campaign to encourage the Maryville community to wear masks to help minimize the spread of COVID-19.
Five students launched a creative social media campaign to encourage the Maryville community to wear masks to help minimize the spread of COVID-19.
Maryville’s University Seminar (USEM) courses have changed a lot of lives over the past two years. But 2020 is the first time it may have saved lives — or at least slowed the spread of COVID-19.
Last fall, the team-taught course, which helps new Maryville students adjust to life on campus, again included an opportunity for them to become social-media influencers.
“The class helps students understand social media influencers and their world,” said Leshay Mathis, the Maryville Life Coach who co-taught the class with Academic Assistant Dean Cecelia Perry and Maryville University Library Reference Specialist Kyle Jenkins. “Influencers have a really negative stereotype, so we wanted students to understand the hard work that goes into that role.”
Five students took an especially novel approach to the class. They decided to use its keystone project to promote mask-wearing on campus. “If you think about an 18-year-old coming to college for the first time, it can be very scary. But now you have to wear a mask, you have to figure out in-person and virtual classes — it’s a lot!” Mathis added. “These students decided to embrace this scary thing going on and celebrate it creatively.”
One of those students was Hailey Hudson. “We decided we wanted to spread positivity with our project,” Hudson explained. “We brainstormed and decided to do something with masks, but we had to figure out how to build social media content around wearing masks.”
Generating rich, engaging content several times a day is the first challenge influencers face. Hudson and the other students — Haley Bedwell, Mia Garguila, Harry Edwards and Toni Jackson — discovered that for themselves as they started seeking pictures of mask-wearers to post on their @maryvillemasksandmotivation Instagram page. But with everyone social distancing, it was a challenge — until they had a brilliant idea.
“We decided to do a ‘most creative mask’ contest,” Hudson said, “and we asked students to include a motivational quote with each submission. That way, the participants could help us generate content and engage as our followers.”
The contest was a hit. Nearly 50 people entered, with three of them receiving $25 gift cards for their winning submissions. The motivational quotes were important, too. They not only drove engagement but also underscored the campaign’s message. “One of my favorite quotes was, ‘If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you,’”
Garguila said. “Meeting people in a pandemic was challenging, but this campaign helped us do that and learn more about each other. It let us bring out the positive of what everyone was dealing with and see how it united us. After all, we are all working for the same thing.”
Meanwhile, a special session of the class featuring three professional influencers provided other useful advice and career guidance. “Members of Gen Z have so many interesting job opportunities, and employers are creating more every day,” Mathis said. “Companies need people who know digital marketing, how to build social media presence and how to get the company to the top of Google. The possibilities are limitless.”