Q&A with UNC social media community leader, Deseré Cross

UNC connects with its students through a variety of popular platforms, from Facebook to Twitter and Instagram. The University promotes itself in a manner not very different from the way students promote their media.

In time for key spring break Instagrams and tweets, staff writer Anish Bhatia spoke with UNC Social Media Community Leader Deseré Cross to hear her perspective on how the success of social media ultimately rests on not just an understanding of oneself but one’s audience as well. 

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The Daily Tar Heel: As the social media community manager at UNC, what exactly do you do?

Deseré Cross: Each day, my partner and I come in and we get an email from the Director of Social Media, Natalie (Vizuete), and she tells us what she wants us to post for the day. That can include events going on around campus and new hot topics, so we post things about that. Also, from time to time, I’ll go out and get photos of campus-related views for the Instagram page. Sometimes there are events going on that I’ll Snapchat. 

Also, a huge part of my job is monitoring, so if there is an event going on campus that may be controversial, we would watch that to make sure nothing happens such that we would have to intervene. But our aim as a whole essentially focuses on telling Carolina stories and letting everyone among our audience know what’s going on on campus and reminding them why they love UNC.

DTH: How can you use social media to make someone jealous? How can you use Twitter/Facebook/Instagram so everyone wants to be you?

DC: One of the things that we do focuses on our hashtag called TARgram, which we follow pretty closely. We actually use that Instagram and so we’ll search #TARgram on Instagram to see that our students take really great pictures that we, from the social media office, were not able to capture the moment. So we’ll search #TARgram and if there’s a picture that we think would do really well, we’ll ask to use them. 

And I know a lot of times when we ask people, “Can we use your picture?” on UNC’s Instagram they get really excited. So in terms of making fellow students jealous and just getting attention, assuming their friends see, social media opportunities like that exist. So it seems in general that users, just as much as students, would get social media creds in a way and make others jealous by having their thoughts or pictures shared or retweeted.

DTH: What are some dos and don'ts of social media, perhaps some you believe people are not aware of?

DC: For dos, I would definitely say that video is becoming more prominent on social media because people love how they’re given something visual, regardless of whether it is something as simple as a photo or something more complex like an emoji or gif because it allows you to tell your story in a very visual and animated manner. So whenever you can, post something visual along with your thoughts. 

As for don'ts, don’t be spammy. From our point of view, we tend to look at our own thoughts favorably, but you should always know your audience and post things you and your audience would find mutually interesting. 

Also, not to sound like a parent, but don’t post anything you wouldn’t want family or professional contacts to see. You can some times forget that anyone can see what you’re posting, so be wary of that.

DTH: As a public relations professional, are there any glaring similarities you’ve found to exist between a business’ marketing strategy and an individual’s personal social media strategy?

DC: It remains important to tell a good story, so whether you’re an individual sharing your spring break trip or you’re an organization like UNC and you want to tell UNC’s story, in the grand scheme of things you should be telling a story — with pictures, with videos, with articles, with audio. That’s what social media marketing is about, regardless of whether that involves an individual or a business.

arts@dailytarheel.com