#102 - The Tiny Team Behind Felician University’s Viral Short-Form Video Hits
w/ Christine Albano
Associate Director of Marketing at Felicia University
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SHOW NOTES
In this conversation, Christine Albano discusses her journey in social media management within higher education, particularly at Felician University. She shares insights on the importance of social media as a research tool for prospective students, the creative processes behind successful campaigns, and the challenges of managing a student content team. Christine emphasizes the need for authenticity in content creation and the role of AI as a supportive tool in marketing strategies. The discussion also covers engagement strategies, including giveaways and contests, and the future direction of Felician's content strategy, including a new podcast initiative.
Key Takeaways:
1. Social media is how prospective students research colleges: Platforms like Instagram and TikTok function as search engines, giving students a real look at campus life before they ever visit a website.
2. Strong engagement comes from relevance and creativity: Content performs best when it highlights real experiences, hands-on learning, and student voices rather than polished marketing clichés.
3. Student content teams need structure, trust, and training: Clear guardrails, hands-on coaching, and shared creative processes help students contribute effectively while staying on brand.
4. Giveaways and interactive formats can drive real momentum: Well-designed campaigns (like Felician’s anti-melt giveaway) can sustain interest, boost engagement, and support enrollment goals.
5. Authenticity and smart use of AI strengthen content strategy: Honest storytelling resonates most, while AI works best as a supportive tool for ideation, captions, and efficiency—not a replacement for human creativity.
Relevant links:
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Transcript (done with AI so only about 90% accurate):
00;00;00;09 - 00;00;02;09
John Azoni
Do you want to read the intro for the podcast?
00;00;02;26 - 00;00;03;09
Ellie Azoni
Sure.
00;00;04;04 - 00;00;05;29
John Azoni
Okay. This is Ellie is only ten years old.
00;00;06;19 - 00;00;26;29
Ellie Azoni
Well, hey, guys, today we're talking to Christina Abella, who is the associate director of marketing at Felicia University, where she leads all social media and content creation initiatives. Her work focuses on elevating students voices, storytelling and building authentic digital communities that showcase campus life and academic excellence.
00;00;27;14 - 00;00;51;06
John Azoni
Nailed it. Ellie is owning everybody a round of applause? Well, I've been a fan of Felicia and social media for a while now. If you've attended any of my webinars or speaking engagements, you might have seen an example from Felicia in Make Its Way In there in our What's working in Higher ed video report, which you can get at unveiled dot TV's slash higher ed video.
00;00;51;16 - 00;01;29;03
John Azoni
We have, I think, two examples from Felicia in in there and I like to use them because they're you know a smaller school, but they have just such a great presence on social and they really understand the platforms and what students want to see. So Christine is she heads up social media there. And today we're talking all about how she uses the student content creators to help her with the work, how she tracks trends with her team, you know, what challenges she's had to overcome and then we'll talk about some specific examples of their videos and including one anti melt summer giveaway campaign that I think is really smart.
00;01;29;04 - 00;01;37;11
John Azoni
I was really impressed about. So here's my chat with Christine Albano. Okay. Well, hey, Christine, welcome to the show.
00;01;37;23 - 00;01;38;21
Christine Albano
Thanks for having me.
00;01;39;06 - 00;02;02;14
John Azoni
Yeah, I've followed Felicia and on socials for, I don't know, a year or two now. And I've always been super impressed, just like with, you know, the relevance of stuff that you post and like, how consistent you guys are and how much it seems like you understand what people want to see. And as a result, I've seen you guys get some good engagement and I've used you guys as examples in toxin webinars that I've that I've done.
00;02;02;21 - 00;02;06;01
John Azoni
So I was excited to get you on the show. I don't know why I haven't had you on sooner.
00;02;06;06 - 00;02;06;13
John Azoni
But.
00;02;07;06 - 00;02;11;03
Christine Albano
I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me on.
00;02;11;13 - 00;02;19;19
John Azoni
Yeah, absolutely. So let's start off on a little tangent. What's something that you've been kind of nerding out about lately could be higher ed related. It doesn't have to be work related.
00;02;20;01 - 00;02;45;04
Christine Albano
It's not really work related. But I am obsessed with pumpkin. Like everything pumpkin. But my sister just got diagnosed with type one diabetes, so everything is low carb, low sugar diet and my whole family, I mean, I'm sure you know, because you're Italian too. But everybody, it's been a huge adjustment for my whole entire family. Yeah. So right now I'm nerding out about pumpkin pancakes.
00;02;45;04 - 00;03;04;04
Christine Albano
My family does Sunday brunch every single week. So pumpkin pancakes is like the new recipe on the list because we're going to flip regular flour for almond flour. And yeah, I think that that's where my storytelling comes into play because Sunday brunch is a big storytelling day for my whole entire family. So.
00;03;05;04 - 00;03;08;17
John Azoni
Yeah, you guys get together like, like every Sunday. Big family thing.
00;03;09;02 - 00;03;15;22
Christine Albano
Yes, Yes, big family. My dad cooks a huge brunch, so I'm like, on the menu this week. It's going to be pumpkin pancakes.
00;03;16;13 - 00;03;18;00
John Azoni
All right? Yeah.
00;03;18;29 - 00;03;38;19
John Azoni
Yeah. I had a stint of doing the low sugar thing. It's very. It is very hard. Like, it's hard. I love carbs. I love candy. That's like my. My thing is. Yeah, sweets, sweets and carbs. So it's hard to substitute stuff like that. It just never quite tastes the same. But I feel like pumpkin. Yeah, you'd get a good leg up.
00;03;38;19 - 00;03;41;07
John Azoni
I feel like it already has. Kind of a natural sweetness to it.
00;03;41;13 - 00;03;42;20
Christine Albano
Yeah, definitely.
00;03;44;01 - 00;03;58;25
John Azoni
All right, well, enough about pumpkins. So you started at Volition as a student worker, and eventually you moved into your current role. So tell me, like, what did that progression teach you about higher ed social media having that sort of inside experience?
00;03;59;07 - 00;04;16;20
Christine Albano
I think as a student, I had kind of an insight and a different approach because even still to this day, I look at social media as if it's Google and I will research something on social media before I even go to a dinner. I want to see what the restaurant looks like, what the lay of the land is there.
00;04;17;01 - 00;04;36;18
Christine Albano
And I think that I kind of use that approach now with students. I know students, they want to see the dorms. They want to see what our campus looks like, what the events are happening at at the school. So for us to be able to say all of this or do all of this and promote all of this is it's kind of good for them and for us.
00;04;37;01 - 00;05;00;28
John Azoni
Yeah, I'm the same way. And I love that you said that because I you know, I've read articles about like the new search is like social media search, and I never really thought much of it until I noticed myself doing that, too. Like, I'm very big on like, I want to know what I'm getting into before I engage a person because I don't want to walk into like a store or something and look dumb.
00;05;01;09 - 00;05;10;15
John Azoni
So I took over like the pool Chemical responsibilities for my wife this past summer. She donated those to me, so I had to.
00;05;10;23 - 00;05;13;29
Christine Albano
Look up a tutorial. You got to have a tutorial? Yeah.
00;05;14;15 - 00;05;23;09
John Azoni
You got to look up a tutorial. And then if you go into the pool store, it's like chemicals everywhere. And you don't want to be the guy that's just knows nothing.
00;05;23;27 - 00;05;24;12
John Azoni
So.
00;05;25;08 - 00;05;38;21
John Azoni
So I had to go in there with some knowledge and I even looked up like, What is the Leslie It's cool store. What's it look like? Where do you go in the store to get, you know, to get your pool water tested and stuff. So at least kind of like knew somewhat like I knew what I was doing.
00;05;39;03 - 00;05;49;13
John Azoni
Yeah, but yeah, I'm the same way I totally research. You know, if I was looking at colleges, I'd be all over, you know, their TikTok and Instagram and stuff. That would be like job number one.
00;05;49;24 - 00;06;04;01
Christine Albano
Right? And that's exactly what I did. I mean, I would I was big on Instagram. I love Instagram, but then TikTok came into play. And that's why hashtags are so important, too, because you literally click on a hashtag and it takes you to all of the world of whatever that hashtag is.
00;06;04;28 - 00;06;07;15
John Azoni
Yeah. Does relation have their own hashtag?
00;06;07;22 - 00;06;11;16
Christine Albano
Yeah, we use Volition University, hashtag, Volition.
00;06;11;16 - 00;06;21;23
John Azoni
All right, jump on that. Give us a lay of the land of, you know, what platforms Felicia is active on and like how your team is structured.
00;06;22;05 - 00;06;49;24
Christine Albano
So Felicia lives like everywhere the students are. So we're on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, YouTube, LinkedIn, everything. And yeah, I mean, I have two students who work with me. I have a student worker who is Stephanie, and I have a graduate assistant who is Alexa, and they're both great. So I kind of handle more of the content mindset and they kind of handle more of like the nitty gritty, getting the clips, bringing them back to me.
00;06;50;05 - 00;06;50;14
John Azoni
Mm hmm.
00;06;50;19 - 00;07;04;14
Christine Albano
And then we'll put it together. I'll schedule it out. So this way they're learning how I do stuff so eventually they can do it themselves and schedule it themselves. And yeah, basically they're learning how I do it that way.
00;07;04;14 - 00;07;16;16
John Azoni
That's great. I mean, you have a couple of assistants. I'm. I'm impressed. And also a little overwhelmed that you're on so many platforms because I'm just like, I can't keep up with anything more than like LinkedIn and maybe YouTube.
00;07;16;29 - 00;07;17;14
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;07;18;00 - 00;07;27;16
John Azoni
Like, how do you how do you do that? Do you have priority like priority platforms Where you're like, I'm going to post this to Instagram and then I'm going to reach across to Twitter and TikTok.
00;07;27;16 - 00;07;45;15
Christine Albano
And I guess it would depend. So anything like undergrad, I would post to Instagram, Facebook, mainly. Facebook is for like the parents to be able to see it of the students. And I guess like the differences is you have to know like the age groups that you're targeting and and who you want to see the content that you're posting.
00;07;45;15 - 00;08;00;20
Christine Albano
So if it was for a graduate open house, it would go strictly to LinkedIn and also Instagram. And I guess it would depend too, on like the time frame. So like the time frame is really important because if we're on Crunch, it's going to go in everything like a crunch time. It's going to go in everything.
00;08;01;00 - 00;08;01;10
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;08;01;14 - 00;08;02;21
Christine Albano
So it's nice to.
00;08;02;21 - 00;08;15;29
John Azoni
Yeah, for sure. So Facebook clearly parents, that makes perfect sense. Do you find any difference in demographic or engagement patterns between, let's say, short form videos on Instagram versus TikTok?
00;08;16;14 - 00;08;22;17
Christine Albano
Yes, Instagram typically sometimes does better because we have a higher following on Instagram.
00;08;22;17 - 00;08;40;03
John Azoni
Okay. So I just that's where and I think I read a statistic that it's like 80% of prospective students go to Instagram to learn about a college. So that makes that tracks. So we have a we'll have a little Q&A at the end, but I wanted to bring one of the questions up to the top because I felt like it was more relevant to ask it here.
00;08;40;03 - 00;08;45;29
John Azoni
So this question is from Abigail Letson, who is also works for Affiliation University Yeah.
00;08;46;03 - 00;08;46;22
John Azoni
Hey, Abby.
00;08;47;06 - 00;09;02;03
John Azoni
Abby, I hope I pronounced your last name wrong. I mean, right. I hope I pronounced it wrong. Abby I hope I pronounced your last name right. So her question was, What's your favorite part of the creative process.
00;09;02;03 - 00;09;07;28
Christine Albano
Seeing it all come together at the end, that is like the best, especially when it does good. That's like, even better.
00;09;09;01 - 00;09;09;15
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;09;09;26 - 00;09;13;17
John Azoni
Yeah. It's like, constantly refreshing the same poster and like.
00;09;14;16 - 00;09;20;26
Christine Albano
I'm like, sending it to everyone. I'm like, Watch this, watch this, like this.
00;09;20;26 - 00;09;36;25
John Azoni
Yeah. Seeing it come together is great. I think that's like the it's the work that goes in for me. It's like the work that goes into it. But then it's like this extended dopamine hit of, like, constantly refreshing. Yeah. Like, see, you know, if someone comments, then it's like, oh great. Like.
00;09;37;06 - 00;09;38;04
John Azoni
You know, so.
00;09;39;03 - 00;09;40;21
John Azoni
So yeah, that's fun.
00;09;40;21 - 00;09;49;29
Christine Albano
It's like the best feeling ever is when somebody comments and you're like, Wait, wait, stop everything I got. Like, right now.
00;09;50;06 - 00;10;08;15
John Azoni
I was so excited. Like, I'm excited when I get comments on YouTube because I feel like those are harder to come by. And I posted a YouTube short about from our podcast about it was about AI and stuff. And so people have all kinds of opinions about and I got a couple of like haters in the comments. I was like, so excited was like controversy.
00;10;08;16 - 00;10;15;19
Christine Albano
Yes, I always hate the haters. I always hate them, but maybe I'm sensitive.
00;10;16;15 - 00;10;39;23
John Azoni
Yeah, I usually I'm pretty sensitive too, but at least I was kind of like, okay, I'm doing I'm ruffle some feathers here. We're really making progress. Okay, So can you because you guys have some specific some specific at least tiktoks and Instagram reels and things that I've seen that you might consider like your greatest hits or something. But give us kind of a lay of the land of like what?
00;10;39;29 - 00;10;44;00
John Azoni
What are some examples of pieces of content that have worked really well for you guys?
00;10;44;14 - 00;11;10;05
Christine Albano
So our two nursing videos that were to promote the of Grant, they both got a 100,000 views. Each one was simply just a student talking to a mannequin and the mannequin was talking back saying like, my arm hurts and it's completely controlled by the professor. So the professors kind of guiding the conversation and guiding the student and the student interacts and it's literally lifelike learning.
00;11;10;14 - 00;11;39;15
Christine Albano
So that was really cool to be able to see. And then the other video that we did was just a collage of videos of and it's March table lifelike suit your arms literally arms that you could practice doing stitches on which was sick. And then there was these VR goggles where you could see holographic of the patients in the nursing part like in the room that they have at Activision and that the whole graphics are like throwing up and you're like, Wait, what is going on here?
00;11;39;15 - 00;11;59;15
Christine Albano
Yeah, think so. It's really cool to promote our, like, real world experience through videos and then another video that did really well just recently reached 100,000 was Christopher Gagliardi. He was talking about how he wants to change the world through our journalism program at Felicia, and he is also on the autistic spectrum.
00;11;59;27 - 00;12;24;08
John Azoni
Yeah, that was a great one. I've used two two of those three examples. And you know, one of my main things that I, you know, advise colleges on it, you know, I think my whole like sort of ethos is trying to get colleges away from like the clichés and into just like more risk taking more more innovative stuff, more giving people what they want to see, not what leadership thinks, thinks people want to see.
00;12;24;17 - 00;12;43;21
John Azoni
So anyways, you know, one of the things I say often is just point the camera at cool stuff and yeah, you know, and I think I use the, the second nursing one that you talked about with, with the holograph and all that stuff and that's a great example of and I liked in the comments people are like, oh I think we didn't have this stuff when I was in nursing school.
00;12;43;21 - 00;12;46;26
John Azoni
Yeah, yeah.
00;12;46;26 - 00;12;59;00
John Azoni
It's like the new I mean, if you're in the nursing now, it's like, you know, if you're thinking about getting into nursing, that's a really great video. So to be like, this is this is what the experience looks like. These are tools I get to use.
00;12;59;14 - 00;13;04;20
Christine Albano
Yeah. Made me want to go to nursing school. I was like, Wow, you guys get to practice at this stuff.
00;13;04;28 - 00;13;07;04
John Azoni
So yeah.
00;13;07;20 - 00;13;25;17
John Azoni
I had my daughter at a procedure she had to get put under for it and she'd just like a scope or whatever, whatever. But she had to get the IV put in her the other day and the nurse couldn't do the find the vein and then they had to bring someone else over to do it. That person did it right.
00;13;25;17 - 00;13;35;25
John Azoni
And then we heard that the first nurse, she went to the spot next to the patient next door to us, and we heard her screw up their vein as well.
00;13;35;25 - 00;13;36;15
Christine Albano
Oh, no.
00;13;37;23 - 00;13;38;18
John Azoni
Oh, no.
00;13;39;12 - 00;13;42;21
Christine Albano
I mean, kicking and screaming. I hate needles. Hate, hate.
00;13;42;24 - 00;13;45;27
John Azoni
So I'm like, she needs she needs to practice on the fake arm, I think.
00;13;45;28 - 00;13;47;26
John Azoni
Yes, she has to console.
00;13;47;26 - 00;13;52;23
Christine Albano
Permission and practice on the suture arm stuff.
00;13;52;23 - 00;14;18;08
John Azoni
Okay. So tell us your workflow a bit for spotting trends, because I know you guys have kind of a daily ritual with your student workers. And this is a question I've gotten from people in webinars and stuff is like I, you know, how do we how do I stay on top of trends? And it's especially relevant. It's especially a question that comes from people that aren't naturally on TikTok, that aren't laying in bed, scrolling TikTok and taking notes of what they see.
00;14;18;17 - 00;14;24;18
John Azoni
But you guys do have kind of a ritual that you bring into the office that helps you spot trends. So what tell me about that.
00;14;24;27 - 00;14;48;08
Christine Albano
Yeah, the first thing that we do is we get coffee and I see the workers are big coffee people. So we will head over to Starbucks, will get a cup of coffee, we'll come back, we'll sit down. Unfortunately, trends aren't 9 to 5, so you kind of have to be on top of them all the time. So sometimes I'll be laying at home in bed and I will be scrolling through affiliation.
00;14;48;14 - 00;15;13;03
Christine Albano
University Tick tock for you page, and I will send it to my student workers. But they know don't answer me until tomorrow if you don't want to. It's fine. It's just when you're on, you have to be on. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's hard because social media is 24 seven, but it's not 24/7 of spotting the trends is something that you have to do, and you have this creative in your own way.
00;15;13;17 - 00;15;25;01
Christine Albano
So that's when we will get a coffee, we'll come back to the office, will sit down, we'll go over everything that we have said to each other, and then we will flock to go do the trends in our old school way.
00;15;25;28 - 00;15;32;08
John Azoni
And I appreciate that you're like, don't respond to this until you know, 9:00.
00;15;32;08 - 00;15;32;15
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;15;32;27 - 00;15;49;02
Christine Albano
Don't don't even look at it until tomorrow and then we'll talk about it because I'll have ideas flowing as soon as I'm watching video. I'm like, Wait, this can go here, Flash, You can use this. We can put this on the screen. It's just I have I will see a video and I'll think of solution and I'll think of it in my head before it's even produced.
00;15;49;13 - 00;16;14;02
John Azoni
Yeah, that's awesome. And I think that strategy is kind of twofold. I think that whether someone naturally scrolls social media on their own time and looks for trends or whether someone doesn't do that but is better off setting aside some time to, you know, every day or every week to scroll intentionally and look for trends. I think those are two great ways to do it.
00;16;14;02 - 00;16;15;21
John Azoni
And sounds like you guys do both.
00;16;15;23 - 00;16;42;12
Christine Albano
Yeah, well, sometimes too, I'll have them sit and I'll say like, sit for like an hour, half hour, an hour and just look and see what you can find. Because then once you spot something, then you spark a whole idea and then you're literally good to go. And then we have content, you know, it's it's kind of both ways, you know, But you definitely have to put the research in and do the work and look for it yourself and think about it and come up with ideas and sit with each other and brainstorm.
00;16;42;24 - 00;16;43;22
Christine Albano
So yeah.
00;16;44;26 - 00;17;11;23
John Azoni
Yeah, definitely. I'm really big on blocking time for one task. I think when we go, Oh, like I need to stay up on the trends, you know, that's so abstract and you know, that could account for hundreds of hours of time. You know, if you don't, if you don't actually, you know, structure it out. So like, one of the things I'm real big on is I have this like a business coach and we set goals every week.
00;17;12;10 - 00;17;30;15
John Azoni
And one of the formats that I really like is like, okay, one of my goals this week is I'm going to spend an hour re-imagining my newsletter or reimagining the podcast and figuring out how I want to improve it. So it's really just it's open ended, but it's like within this hour block of time, that's what I'm going to be thinking about.
00;17;30;15 - 00;17;47;19
John Azoni
And for me, and with the way that my brain works, I know it's like it's on my calendar. I know it's going to get done that week. So and I don't really necessarily know what I'm going to come up with in that hour, but at least I know it's there. And I'm not overwhelmed by like, oh my gosh, when I'm when am I going to be on top of the trends?
00;17;47;19 - 00;17;50;15
John Azoni
Because like, when are you ever done with that? You know.
00;17;50;15 - 00;17;54;12
John Azoni
That that's just never going.
00;17;54;12 - 00;17;57;24
John Azoni
At least you're like, okay, in 60 minutes I'll be done for this week.
00;17;58;03 - 00;17;59;25
Christine Albano
Yeah, Yeah. Really? Yeah.
00;18;01;06 - 00;18;26;06
John Azoni
Okay. So a lot of higher brands, they're trying to build these student content teams and and this can be a really messy process. So I know you said you got Stephanie and Alexa. How have you equipped them or previous student workers who have helped you to succeed? Have there been any like times when anyone's gone off the rails or something like that and something you had to kind of pivot or course.
00;18;26;06 - 00;18;28;21
John Azoni
Correct. Or damage control or anything like that?
00;18;29;06 - 00;18;51;09
Christine Albano
Yeah. So sometimes our our sense students, like our student workers to events on campus that are happening and just to get either B-roll or just take pictures or that type of thing. And a lot of the times the professor or whoever, the staff member who is running the event will confuse them with students who are attending the event.
00;18;51;18 - 00;19;15;04
Christine Albano
So that has become an issue quite a lot. And there are times where he my my student workers need to be on their phone or on the camera and the professors will confuse them and be like, wait, what's going on here? Like, why are you on your phone? And they're like, Wait, like, what are you talking about? So what we're going to be doing going forward is getting affiliation T-shirts.
00;19;15;04 - 00;19;25;22
Christine Albano
That's affiliation marketing on them. So no miscommunication and no misjudgment. And they could do their job that they love. And yeah, then there's no confusion.
00;19;26;21 - 00;19;53;24
John Azoni
That's a great idea. I'm big on t shirts. I used to do. I used to do all the photography for my city. I live in a suburb of Detroit called Troy, so the city of Troy would send me to like all these different events and stuff to take pictures. But they're always involved kids. And I always felt so awkward because like, I never had a t shirt and I always was just like, you know, they would send me to like the public pool to, like, take pictures of families and stuff.
00;19;53;24 - 00;20;01;10
John Azoni
And I'm like, This is so awkward. I ended up I ended up just stuck. That was the reason why I stopped doing it, because I just felt so I felt so uncomfortable.
00;20;01;29 - 00;20;21;07
Christine Albano
Yeah, that's it. That's another huge issue, too. Like Felicia is a lot of the time we have to have like parents written consent for if there is a kid on campus and they want to be on a picture like for any of the bigger events that we do. So that's that can be a challenge too sometimes because we're like, wait, I don't know who you are and I don't think you can be on camera.
00;20;21;29 - 00;20;28;06
John Azoni
Yeah, yeah. But it's almost like you need like a sign when you send your student workers to these events. It's like I.
00;20;28;13 - 00;20;29;12
Christine Albano
Send them with paperwork.
00;20;30;00 - 00;20;33;10
John Azoni
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00;20;33;10 - 00;20;58;16
John Azoni
So are there anything that you is there anything like that you've put in place to kind of like, help equip them for success, or are you mainly getting people who are already kind of on the track of like, you know, being a content creator? They've already done it. Maybe they've got their own channels that they've been creating content on, Like where do you find people and then how do you kind of get them up to speed on the, you know, the volition way to do things?
00;20;58;29 - 00;21;17;22
Christine Albano
Yeah. So I actually didn't learn this till after. But normally when I am looking for a student or a student comes to me and they say, We want to work for your department, it's like a test right away, like I'm sending you out with the work phone and I want to see what you can come up with and how passionate you are about seeing it all the way through with Alexa.
00;21;17;22 - 00;21;36;18
Christine Albano
He actually I didn't know this until recently. He actually has a separate Instagram account. So separate social media, I guess, because he's on Instagram and TikTok, where he runs a Harry Potter fan page and he has like 30,000 followers. I was like, Look at this guy. I didn't even know you had this. So it was.
00;21;36;18 - 00;21;37;09
John Azoni
Harry Potter.
00;21;37;09 - 00;21;37;17
John Azoni
Fan.
00;21;37;17 - 00;21;42;27
Christine Albano
PAGE Yes. Yes. He loves Harry Potter. Loves. So yeah.
00;21;43;29 - 00;21;44;22
John Azoni
That's all really.
00;21;44;22 - 00;22;06;26
Christine Albano
Cool. Yeah. Yes. But yeah, I think the most challenging thing is seeing the videos and then seeing if they're on like branding or not. That is like what's hard? Because when the students come, some of them are like, Can we do this trend or can we post this picture? And it's like, Wait, we can't post everything because we have like certain guidelines that we have to follow.
00;22;06;29 - 00;22;11;21
Christine Albano
Stuff can't be posted that has curse words in it or, you know, that type of thing.
00;22;12;03 - 00;22;24;17
John Azoni
Yeah. How much freedom do you guys have with leadership above you? Is there anything like approvals you have to get or is it generally like they've approved the the guardrails and then you just operate within that?
00;22;24;27 - 00;22;44;23
Christine Albano
Yes, exactly. They give me a lot of creative freedom, which I'm very appreciative of because it's hard trying to get a lot of things approved. I mean, social media isn't just my sole focus. So I know, like, you know, when I have to do like a flier or some type of marketing collateral and I have to get it approved, and then they say, Wait, we don't want it like that.
00;22;44;23 - 00;23;02;27
Christine Albano
We want it like this. I'm glad that I have social media where it's kind of like my little baby and I like take care of it and I do all the things that I need to. But having like, I guess I know like the approval process and not having to do that with social media is so much better than having that, if that makes sense.
00;23;03;07 - 00;23;14;22
Christine Albano
Yeah. Plus I feel like I've been just in this role for so long that they do trust me with the social media, which is also a huge plus and I'm so appreciative of that. So that's that's.
00;23;14;22 - 00;23;14;29
John Azoni
Good.
00;23;16;02 - 00;23;37;28
John Azoni
That's awesome. So a lot of times with small content teams, you have to like the managers have to be the content creators, and then you have to sort of like, you know, get over some fears. And I know that when we spoke in our pre-interview, you had told me you had an experience where you had to like, get over this like someone like posted a picture of you tell me that story because I think.
00;23;38;03 - 00;23;39;19
John Azoni
Yes, can relate to that.
00;23;39;19 - 00;24;01;13
Christine Albano
Yeah. So I was a student worker and I was just doing a daily video with the mascot. It was it was actually this helicopter. And I'll never forget the video is still posted to this day. And I was blind and the helicopter trained. It was like, you're you're standing like this and you're just spinning in a circle and the video is sped up.
00;24;01;22 - 00;24;19;14
Christine Albano
I was doing that trend with the mascot. Somebody took a video of me doing it. It's just like, Oh, no, I didn't even see them doing it until later. And I saw the video had been posted on a Snapchat story with the caption, What is this? And I was like, Oh no.
00;24;19;14 - 00;24;19;17
John Azoni
It.
00;24;20;14 - 00;24;35;15
Christine Albano
Turns out, you know, I obviously I was a little embarrassed, but I had to completely strip myself of the fear of what other people thought of me. And taking that, I kind of turned it into a career now. So yeah.
00;24;36;18 - 00;24;44;12
John Azoni
Yeah. When I see people in public making tiktoks and stuff, I always do feel like it's like it's funny to watch them. Yes.
00;24;44;13 - 00;24;47;02
John Azoni
And I'm like, how Like.
00;24;47;19 - 00;24;50;19
John Azoni
At the airport or something. And they're doing a dance and it's like.
00;24;51;01 - 00;24;52;07
John Azoni
Yo, man, you're like.
00;24;52;07 - 00;24;56;21
Christine Albano
Wait a second. There's a time and a place. There's a time and a place for this.
00;24;56;21 - 00;24;56;29
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;24;58;02 - 00;25;03;24
John Azoni
But then I'm also like, you know, kudos to them because I am so self-conscious in public.
00;25;04;04 - 00;25;04;07
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;25;04;09 - 00;25;24;18
John Azoni
When I like, when I record anything, any content for YouTube or whatever outside of this podcast, like, no one can be home in my house because I just, I don't like that. I don't even like anyone maybe listening to me from two rooms away. Yeah, but I do applaud people that that will get out there and like even do a dance or something like that.
00;25;24;18 - 00;25;44;03
John Azoni
You know, we were at Cedar Point with our family a few weeks ago and I walked by and these like three girls were had their phone set up and they were doing this Tik tok dance. And I came back like half an hour later and they were still there trying to get the right take of this dance. I'm like, I, oh, my God.
00;25;44;03 - 00;25;52;25
John Azoni
Like, I have been like, Get this done like five. Yeah, yeah, 5 seconds of me dancing in public, and then we're going to turn the camera off.
00;25;53;13 - 00;25;55;29
Christine Albano
Yes. And then we're done.
00;25;56;23 - 00;25;57;01
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;25;58;29 - 00;26;17;12
John Azoni
My wife is one of my anniversary presents to her every year as I let the waiter take a picture of us at the table. And I don't know why. I just get so. I'm, like, so uncomfortable by, like, being, like, the center of attention for a moment.
00;26;17;13 - 00;26;20;28
Christine Albano
You get one shot and make it good. Yeah, Make it good.
00;26;21;07 - 00;26;22;03
John Azoni
Smile.
00;26;22;19 - 00;26;26;01
John Azoni
You know everything, right? Check your teeth. All the stuff.
00;26;26;05 - 00;26;30;04
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;26;30;04 - 00;27;00;06
John Azoni
So? Yeah. Okay. So you led a anti melt summer giveaway campaign that got a bunch of page views. Walk us through that because a lot of people think that, you know, okay, we're on we're on Instagram, we're on TikTok, Facebook, whatever. And this is all very top of funnel stuff and we're trying to build awareness. But like I like that you guys were actually using social for something further down the funnel where you're trying to get, you know, admitted students to actually show up.
00;27;00;08 - 00;27;03;13
John Azoni
You know, so talk about what that what that campaign looked like.
00;27;04;01 - 00;27;31;10
Christine Albano
So a staff member had came to me with an idea to reduce summer melt. And basically that idea wasn't really like I didn't like it, to be honest. I really didn't like it. So I had sent them an email. I said, Why don't we take this approach? They gave me a 1500 dollar budget and I was like, All right, we're going to do a giveaway week for six weeks straight, and they're gradually going to get bigger for the students.
00;27;31;20 - 00;27;57;09
Christine Albano
So the first giveaway was a merch bundle. It was like a sweatshirt, like a Stanley mug with the Volition logo on it and maybe a t shirt. And I don't know, I think like crocodile, but I can't really remember off the top of my head. Oh, nice. But yeah, yeah. And then that post actually got like 30,000 views and there were obviously you had to have rules in order to get into the giveaway.
00;27;57;22 - 00;28;24;09
Christine Albano
So some of the rules were like, Why do you want this giveaway like this post? Share this, post your story. And yeah, from there it got bigger. There were a dorm bundle, which was actually probably my favorite one because it was so creative that we put together like a mattress topper or a shower caddy. A it, which was probably my favorite thing this far because we do have a lot of people that come from different areas of the country and the world.
00;28;24;09 - 00;28;44;26
Christine Albano
So having like a second and feeling like close to home was very important. Then we did like a DoorDash gift card and Uber gift card and Amazon gift card. And the Amazon gift card was kind of cool because we had just gotten Amazon lockers that day on campus. So I was like, We're going to use that. And we're going to have like a dollar way.
00;28;44;26 - 00;29;11;01
Christine Albano
We were going to promote both and then, yeah, yeah. So then the last two giveaways were two $500 gift cards each to the American Dream Mall, which was nice because the American Dream Mall is literally in our backyard and the students could take a five minute Uber ride to the American dream. So someone from Student Affairs actually came to me and they said, we want to donate $500 to this giveaway.
00;29;11;08 - 00;29;32;01
Christine Albano
And I was like, okay, perfect. So I was like, I'm going to make the students happy. Our number is going to go up, everyone's happy. And then, yeah, so it was a really cool campaign. It actually managed to do 1.2 million views across two months, which was absolutely insane. I was that was like the biggest numbers yet for for me on Instagram.
00;29;32;01 - 00;29;33;00
Christine Albano
And yeah.
00;29;34;00 - 00;30;00;12
John Azoni
That's amazing And I think you know people might wonder, okay so how much did that decrease melt and that's one of those things that's like really hard to judge. And that's where I say like, okay, the win is did you get people engaged and did you keep people engaged? Like that for me is like you could measure how much melt declined, but that would take some extra steps and surveys and things like that.
00;30;00;18 - 00;30;20;16
John Azoni
But I like, yeah, I like that you developed a system to keep people engaged. It's not like. So gradually the prize is getting bigger. One of the things that I really love about Mr. Beast videos is that, I mean, throughout a whole half hour episode, the stakes just keep getting higher and higher and higher and you can't stop watching.
00;30;20;25 - 00;30;21;08
John Azoni
It's yeah.
00;30;22;26 - 00;30;30;01
John Azoni
And he's always teasing the next thing and the next things always going to cost $3 Million more than the previous thing that he did.
00;30;31;25 - 00;30;37;22
Christine Albano
I know he has me literally sitting on the edge of my seat Every time I watch his videos, I'm like, Wow, I do. I'll do the last one.
00;30;38;12 - 00;30;38;24
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;30;39;06 - 00;30;51;21
John Azoni
So I think that's I'm in. I applaud you for that. I wouldn't you know, I don't know if I would have thought to have those gradually get bigger. I might have been like, All right, let's do one giveaway, see how it goes. Okay. That one. Okay. All right. On to the next thing. Yeah.
00;30;52;20 - 00;31;04;22
Christine Albano
Yeah. No, it definitely kept students excited because they were looking forward to like, oh, what's going to be the next week's grades? And I'm going to win it. There were students who are doing the account like, I hope you know, I'm winning this one this week. And I was like.
00;31;05;11 - 00;31;07;12
John Azoni
Well, see, I don't know. Yeah.
00;31;08;19 - 00;31;09;21
John Azoni
That's great.
00;31;09;21 - 00;31;09;25
Christine Albano
Right?
00;31;10;00 - 00;31;11;21
John Azoni
Yeah. Because.
00;31;12;12 - 00;31;34;14
John Azoni
I mean, you know, we help colleges with, with videos sometimes on anti melt campaigns and it's usually like in emails, you know, we're making a video to plug into an email and it's like it's so hard to get anyone to engage. Like that's a, that's a win right there that anyone would just DMU Like, I mean, that's, that's saying a lot that like someone cared enough to actually engage a person.
00;31;34;27 - 00;31;35;04
Christine Albano
Now.
00;31;35;05 - 00;31;37;10
John Azoni
Yeah. Over the thing that you're posting.
00;31;37;18 - 00;31;59;08
Christine Albano
Another thing that helps with engagement is posting the post to your story and then having like the question sticker and having students write like different things, like basically the question will be like, how are you guys liking this? This week's giveaway? Oh, I love it. I am going to win this week and I'm going to have that $500 giveaway today in my hand.
00;31;59;16 - 00;32;04;08
Christine Albano
I know. Like, wait a second. Anyway, they're going to get story.
00;32;04;29 - 00;32;17;01
John Azoni
Yeah. The questions thing is, is great. I actually really enjoy watching people's questions, stories or whatever, just like ask, I don't know. I'm like, I don't even know this person. But sure, I'll watch random facts about you.
00;32;17;20 - 00;32;20;15
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;32;20;15 - 00;32;32;29
John Azoni
So how did you ensure that only actual volition students that were part of the melt, you know, demographic for you guys, how did you ensure that only they won the giveaways manually?
00;32;32;29 - 00;32;49;01
Christine Albano
I went through every single comment and I made sure that they were affiliation student Whether I look them up or I looked in their bio and I was like, Do they have affiliation in their bio? So and after that we put them into like a random generator. Sorry, I just let me do it.
00;32;49;13 - 00;32;49;21
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;32;50;14 - 00;32;54;25
Christine Albano
We put them into a random generator and let the wheel spin, and that's how we picked them.
00;32;55;05 - 00;33;02;25
John Azoni
Cool. I like that. Yeah. So sometimes we do have to do some manual work. You know, social media is not all just, you know, pushing buttons and automation.
00;33;02;25 - 00;33;03;03
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;33;05;01 - 00;33;19;17
John Azoni
Okay. I wanted to talk and let's switch gears because you guys made a commercial for Open House and you guys used a GoPro. And I just want to hear about that campaign because there's a really interesting video and I wanted to hear just hear the behind the scenes for making that.
00;33;20;00 - 00;33;46;04
Christine Albano
Yeah, I mean, my so this was actually a project that my graduate assistant worked on. So he went and it was actually his GoPro, so it was his personal GoPro. I was like, All right, let's use it. Like, let's just see. And a lot of what we do is testing things out to see how they do, right? So he went out and I was like, I want to see all of solutions like top ten things that you would want to see in a school, right?
00;33;46;12 - 00;34;10;20
Christine Albano
So and I wanted to be in the style of a student, like I want it to be like, you're looking through the eyes of a golden falcon, right? So start first. It started off in the dorms, then you see all the professors. Then you see how close we are to New York City and the American Dream. So it was cool because my student in Alexa, he he took the GoPro everywhere with him.
00;34;10;20 - 00;34;28;18
Christine Albano
He would go to the city on the weekends and grab clips, just three little clips that he wanted while he was out. And we actually put them in the video and then they would go to the different professors and the professors get excited when they see us. They're like, Oh, no, they're coming, but they're excited. Yeah, let's go.
00;34;29;03 - 00;34;33;15
Christine Albano
Yeah. So they wanted to participate and they wanted to be in this video.
00;34;33;25 - 00;34;56;02
John Azoni
Cool. I love that. I like that. You know, one of the things I love about short form video is you can test a lot of stuff, you know, on your socials, TikTok and Instagram and stuff. So you know, you could test something like a point of view and then you see a spike in views. Then it's like, All right, let's elevate this to, yeah, what we would call like a flagship video.
00;34;56;02 - 00;35;07;07
John Azoni
Like we're going to make a dedicated video for this open house or whatever. And you actually have some metrics to know that, hey, this point of view stuff actually works really well.
00;35;07;19 - 00;35;08;01
Christine Albano
Yeah.
00;35;08;12 - 00;35;16;29
John Azoni
So what's next for Felicia's content strategy? Because you mentioned when we talked earlier that there's something about a campus radio station as a content hub.
00;35;17;09 - 00;35;38;02
Christine Albano
Yeah. So we're so marketing and communications is actually taking over the radio station. And in there I want to put I want to start a podcast for Felicia and I. We already have like kind of a name and we were like kind of brainstorming ideas of different things. We all put a backdrop in there, but we also want to have student volunteers.
00;35;38;02 - 00;35;51;01
Christine Albano
And we actually did. We worked with this company called Campus Real, and we actually we paid them, they paid the students to give us content. So it was I don't know if you're familiar with campus Real.
00;35;51;11 - 00;36;03;18
John Azoni
Yeah, very familiar. They have a great business model. I have a lot of you know, I think it's really impressive what they do, like that whole model of giving the equipment to the students to get the content for you. I think it's super smart.
00;36;03;29 - 00;36;20;10
Christine Albano
Yeah. So I want to I want to kind of do something like that as with student volunteers and kind of do it more so not as a volunteer, but as like an internship and how them in in the radio station, old radio station, but also be doing like podcasts and stuff like that.
00;36;21;03 - 00;36;28;01
John Azoni
That's cool. I like that. What would the angle be for the podcast? Like what kind of things would you talk about or what kind of guests would you have on?
00;36;28;13 - 00;36;45;29
Christine Albano
We have a lot of students from so many walks of life and I really want the the podcast. The name of it is going to be like fall convo, but it's Falcon convo in one word. So we want it to be authentic, raw students telling their stories.
00;36;46;12 - 00;36;48;03
John Azoni
I like that. I like that a lot.
00;36;48;04 - 00;36;48;15
Christine Albano
Yeah.
00;36;48;16 - 00;37;08;20
John Azoni
You know, I did a episode a long time ago on the podcast with Nate Jorgensen from Miami University. They have the Major Insights podcast and they have a format similar to that where it's just a real student who's a host interviewing other students, just telling raw stories, talking about their future, talking about mental health, you know, all this stuff.
00;37;08;20 - 00;37;14;18
John Azoni
And it's they've like won awards with that. Like it's it's yeah, it's a really successful format for them.
00;37;15;07 - 00;37;17;18
Christine Albano
To send me that. I want to take a look at that. It's awesome.
00;37;18;00 - 00;37;22;16
John Azoni
Yeah. Well, I look forward to checking out the fall convo. Is that what is.
00;37;22;16 - 00;37;23;03
Christine Albano
Yes.
00;37;23;07 - 00;37;23;24
John Azoni
Well that's.
00;37;25;17 - 00;37;26;00
Christine Albano
Yes.
00;37;27;15 - 00;37;27;22
John Azoni
Cool.
00;37;28;10 - 00;37;54;14
John Azoni
All right. I want to jump into some quick Q&A. So we have a content creator at university. She asks, How do you get students to want to be filmed for Man on the Street videos? So I know you guys, you mentioned we didn't talk much about it, but Christopher Gagliardi, that video did really well and that was just a man on the street video style where you had a student or alumni just hold a mic up to him and they asked him a question.
00;37;54;16 - 00;38;06;15
John Azoni
He gave this really great response that people really resonated with. So for people that don't know, that's essentially what a man on the street video is. But how do you how do you get people to be involved or do you just go up and ask people and see what happens?
00;38;07;01 - 00;38;14;07
Christine Albano
We honestly, we go up and, hey, do you want to be in a video really quick? It's going to be like 30 seconds. That's it. That's how we do it.
00;38;14;25 - 00;38;17;02
John Azoni
What's the response rate like? Is it pretty good?
00;38;17;12 - 00;38;18;20
Christine Albano
Yeah, sure. I'll be in a video.
00;38;19;03 - 00;38;19;18
John Azoni
That's cool.
00;38;19;21 - 00;38;35;26
Christine Albano
Like that. Yeah. Yeah. We don't. I mean, when we do get a no here and there, it's just like, okay, next person. And I've kind of trained my students to think as if you're going to get a no so that, you know okay no worries Next person. Yeah don't think you know.
00;38;36;13 - 00;38;43;26
John Azoni
For sure I mean what's your thoughts on paying people like if you were like here's ten bucks to be in a video like, would you do that?
00;38;44;06 - 00;38;48;11
Christine Albano
But I mean, hey, if the budget's there, Yeah, definitely.
00;38;49;17 - 00;39;08;18
John Azoni
Because I was like, I think it got me thinking about this or I was like, because we were filming a commercial on a campus and we're trying to get some people to like be in the background of shots and we're like, Hey, you guys want to be in a commercial? And everyone's like, you know, Oh yeah. Because they're like, Well, yeah, it's a little different because it's like, okay, this is going on national TV and these people just like, probably just rolled out of bed.
00;39;09;07 - 00;39;11;16
John Azoni
Yeah, they're on their way to class.
00;39;11;16 - 00;39;25;12
Christine Albano
That's definitely hard too. But a lot of our students are. We have a lot of student athletes, so sometimes they look like they're in sweatpants and sweatshirts and sometimes they don't. So on the good days, we're like, Get over here, get in a video really quick.
00;39;26;18 - 00;39;28;24
John Azoni
You are slaying today. Get in there.
00;39;28;25 - 00;39;33;28
John Azoni
Yeah, yeah. Early. I love it.
00;39;34;14 - 00;39;49;08
John Azoni
All right. So next question is a content creator at the University of Arizona asks, What role should I play in creating content? And I'm curious to know what is your stance on AI and how it gets used in your campaigns and things?
00;39;49;27 - 00;40;09;07
Christine Albano
I think the more that we look at A.I. as like as if it's going to take over, I think that that's just not how we should be looking at air. I think we should be looking at AI like it's a helpful tool and it can help us in so many different ways. There are certain things that I can do.
00;40;09;07 - 00;40;24;10
Christine Albano
For example, like sometimes when I I'm having a brain fart, I will literally say, Give me this caption for today. I have no idea what to write. And I'll say, Put it in my voice and it will literally spit out like, Hey, girlie. And I'm like, We.
00;40;24;14 - 00;40;29;13
John Azoni
Like, I think, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00;40;30;00 - 00;40;41;06
Christine Albano
But you can train AI to be how you want it to be, which is so cool. And if you're not taking advantage of AI now, you're just going to not benefit from all the factors that it has, in my opinion.
00;40;41;18 - 00;40;50;21
John Azoni
Yeah, for sure. I think we're a long ways off from just writing in a couple and having this amazing, personalized, you know, short form vertical video.
00;40;50;21 - 00;40;51;09
John Azoni
Pop up that.
00;40;51;24 - 00;41;02;24
John Azoni
Uses actual footage from your campus and your actual students and stuff. I mean, I think that's like, that's pretty farfetched, although I say that and then like, probably like next week they'll come out with that.
00;41;03;19 - 00;41;04;02
John Azoni
Yeah.
00;41;04;10 - 00;41;27;27
John Azoni
But yeah, I mean, that's great that because it's, it is so helpful. It takes me forever to write any titles for podcast episodes. So I will take the transcript from this after we hang up. I'll take the transcript from this, put in a ditch CBT and yeah, give me five or ten catchy titles and then I'll usually like they'll be like 60% of the way there and then I'll latch on to one and finish it.
00;41;27;27 - 00;41;30;18
Christine Albano
Yeah, you're like, More options, please.
00;41;31;13 - 00;41;35;16
John Azoni
More options. Yes.
00;41;35;16 - 00;41;45;13
John Azoni
Well, cool. This has been super, super fun conversation. I want people to have a chance to to follow Felicia and on socials and see what you're up to. So where can they find you guys at.
00;41;45;23 - 00;41;54;25
Christine Albano
Felicia Underscore University on Instagram. Same for Tik Tok. Facebook is releasing University and X LinkedIn affiliation University.
00;41;56;02 - 00;42;02;07
John Azoni
Awesome. All right. Pretty straightforward. Well, thank you so much. It's great chatting with you. Thanks for being here.
00;42;02;19 - 00;42;03;29
Christine Albano
All right. Thanks for having me.
