#ColoStateFOUND: How We Welcomed our Class of 2019

in Engagement

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”7735″ img_size=”870×426″ alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This year, Colorado State University welcomed its Class of 2019 (feel old yet?) to campus during CSU’s welcome week, Ram Welcome.

We knew there was a lot of opportunity to engage with our new students, including recruiting new students for our new Street Team.

In the course of the week, we reached 930,000 people on Facebook alone. Here’s what we did.

Take me home video

Our new Rams moved in on the Wednesday of Ram Welcome week, which meant freshmen (and our other Rams, as well) were likely driving or flying to Fort Collins during the days beforehand. We created a short video to John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” to create excitement for our traveling Rams.

take.me.home

Alum advice Buzzfeed article

A large fan-base on CSU’s Facebook page is alumni. To engage them in Ram Welcome, we asked alumni to share their advice with our Class of 2019. We received advice from around 400 alumni, and took the best pieces of advice to create a Buzzfeed article.

buzzfeed.alum.advice

Roommate nostalgia

Everyone remembers their first-ever roommate. Whether that’s a good thing or bad thing is none of my business. We wanted to create a little nostalgia with our Ram fans, so we posted a picture to Facebook of two new roommates who had just met that day, and we asked our fans to tag their freshman roommate. It was the most.

tag.your.roommate

All-the-feels video

Get the tissues ready, friends. We wanted to create a piece for all the amazing parents who were leaving their babies behind at CSU. And boy did we. Our team solicited advice from parents for their new Rams. And this is what happened.

parent.advice.video

#ColoStateFOUND

We’ve been talking to the Class of 2019 on social long before they arrived at Ram Welcome. The main university accounts and our friends at Admissions have been engaging with the admitted Rams using #ColoStateBound from the time they were admitted into CSU. (Not to mention we connected with them through RamChats before they even decided to apply to CSU)

Although #RamWelcome and #CSUFirst50 were the official hashtag of the week, we wanted to create a hashtag that had a little more emotional oomph. That’s when we came up with #ColoStateFOUND. It made for some great content to swoon over.

colostatefound

The other “greats”

Beyond these bigger pieces, we also:

  • Posted photo albums of move-in and pep rallies throughout the week.
  • Posted the traditional “CSU” picture, where the new Rams use their bodies to form C, S, and U.
  • We Snapchatted dorm packing lists, countdowns, and documented the entire Ram Welcome experience on both CSU and CAM the Ram Snapchat accounts.
  • Two Ram Welcome leaders took over our student-run Instagram account, @ProudToBeACSURam, as well as our CSU Snapchat account to share the experience with other Rams

We would also like to thank our campus friends (literally you all are the best) from Housing and Dining, and Orientation and Transition Programs for helping us make this all possible!

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