WSU Office of Research – Growing the Communication Strategy

As an outside observer, the WSU Office of Research has three readily-accessible content lines for external audiences:

Research.wsu.edu/news/: Fast- but irregular-paced news releases summarizing recent publications
WSU Insider magazine: Print and web content released at a slower pace than Office of Research News, though some stories are cross-posted at news.wsu.edu and research.wsu.edu
Social media accounts: LinkedIn is the most active, but research from WSU is regularly posted by Pullman- and WSU-affiliated accounts, like @pullman.unlocked on TikTok, as well as @wsu.urc (Undergraduate Research Club) and @gradschoolwsu (WSU Graduate School) on Instagram.

As a former inside observer, I can add readily-accessible content lines for internal audiences:

Research lifecycle and management guides
Internal links to research-related offices at WSU
Near-boilerplate language for students and faculty disseminating their research

A growth-oriented content strategy for a Communications Coordinator would build on this foundation to create content at three velocities:

High-velocity content for brand awareness and engagement.
Medium-velocity content for grant- and donation-seeking activity
Low-velocity content for authority-building

High-Velocity Content

High-Velocity Content

High-velocity content would build on the current LinkedIn model by replacing the shortlink to a /news/ page with some other proof-point:

Simple, broad-value statements describing the findings and application of recently published/presented research.
Proof-point of that research
- Short-form video interview (or VO + b-roll) with researcher(s)
- Infographic produced in concert with researcher(s)
- Link to external publication (conference proceedings, external reporting)

This approach would be focused on building an audience rather than driving traffic. It would provide a low-effort route to promoting the work of researchers at WSU.

Unseen goal: This approach would also provide an easily shareable resource for the researchers themselves, helping build their credibility and audience (critical for junior faculty and graduate students) as well as WSU’s second-party contacts.

High-Velocity Content

The other platforms

This approach is weakly suited to LinkedIn, but it would be particularly useful on slow news days or for researchers who prefer this route.

High-Velocity Content

Externally-Facing Short-Form Video

@pullman.unlocked shows a small following for research-based content, but the account is run by a local realtor.
- An account run by the Office of Research focused on promoting WSU researchers could easily build from this connection (especially if Jordan Vorderbrueggen is willing to work together for some joint content early on)
The frequency and volume of work produced by WSU researchers is a content goldmine, if video content can keep up
- This presents a significant opportunity to work with the researchers themselves or with students in related majors/career paths to produce this content
- This content can easily be repurposed to YouTube Shorts, Facebook Reels, and Instagram

High-Velocity Content

Internally-Facing Short-Form Content

Intra-organizational social media is not a hugely popular tool, but it is likely already developed and available.
- I described the concept to my oldest child when she saw me checking my email. She said “that sounds cringe.”
- Despite that negative review, I’d propose using an existing internal social media space or simple, weekly newsletter to repeat and highlight the high-velocity content from other platforms

The intent of internal content would be to first build visibility of the Office of Research’s outbound content among internal stakeholders. Increased faculty reactions to social media content would build second-party connections and (ideally) increase follower counts.

The secondary goal would be to break down silos by visibly putting more researchers in one location.

High-Velocity Content

Method: Avoiding overwhelm and burnout

This material would be produced once and reused with minimal modification across several platforms. Excluding video content with speaking humans, verbal material can be drawn from publications or researcher descriptions. Graphic content may be sourced from existing WSU photography collections or stock material sites.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/meter-group_sustainablemining-environmentalscience-landrehabilitation-activity-7391146459087163392-Jscn

Example: Simple podcast VO extraction + stock footage

60-second segment of an interview delivered for another piece of collateral (archival)
Stock footage with related concepts

Video content with speaking humans (e.g. interviews, candid video of research sites) would be a later goal and would likely require student workers.

High-Velocity Content

Medium-Velocity Content

I would consider much of the current outbound to be medium-velocity. It takes significant time to research, write, and approve before publishing. I would assume that this work has a timeline of a week to publication when working from a press-release, and I would assume a timeline of 2-3 weeks if it involves interviewing and coordinating with researchers.

High-Velocity Content

Method: Proactively Sourcing Content

As a former faculty researcher at WSU and other institutions, I can say that working with internal university offices to promote research projects is daunting. It’s just not something most of us were trained to do.

If this practice is not already in place, I would build a medium-velocity content strategy around direct outreach to faculty, initially via department chairs. Emails or office visits at the beginning and end of each semester would be an ideal starting point to collect information about researchers that could be contacted about their work:

Exciting, interesting, or noteworthy research that has been conducted by faculty or students in the department.
Faculty preparing to submit tenure/promotion portfolios who would like help publicizing their work for those portfolios.
Graduate students completing theses and dissertations who would like help publicizing their work as part of the upcoming job hunt.

In my experience at SEL and METER, working with researchers who have a direct, material interest in getting their work publicized usually results in better engagement during the content creation process and faster responses during approval and pre-publication administrative work.

High-Velocity Content

Low-Velocity Content

I consider anything with a production timeline longer than 4 weeks to be low-velocity. This content may be an especially long /news/ post or a series of connected social posts (not a “burst” like a Twitter thread, but a planned sequence of posts over several days or weeks).

The connection I would make to my time in marketing-land is this story about an SEL customer.

As a former researcher, I would imagine this in connection with internal WSU research grants—content developed by following and working with researchers at multiple stages of their project, released only when they begin disseminating their work through conferences, journals, workshops, or other venues.

High-Velocity Content

Method: Minimizing Backlog

This type of content would create the most backlog. Following researchers for a year or more before releasing any content would require substantial organization and project management skill. Luckily, I have that skill.

Minimizing backlog would mean regular check-ins, which would be similar to the method behind proactively sourcing content.

Minimizing backlog would also mean tracking and documenting developments to avoid a massive completion-task at the end of the project, which would fit well with an internal newsletter or internal social media announcement system.

If this approach is successful and grows beyond a single person’s capacity, minimizing backlog would also mean developing an internship or student training program.

High-Velocity Content