Foster School
of Business
The University of Washington’s Foster School of Business proudly holds a seat as the No. 22 ranked MBA in the U.S. and the No. 3 business school for job placement. A feeder school to some of the world’s foremost tech companies and consulting firms, Foster’s student experience and faculty research prowess rival that of any Ivy.
Yet Foster suffered the hallmarks of the noble “thousand year institution”: Overcautious and stymied strategic vision, a lack of agility and tactical prowess, and an inward-facing approach to branding and public relations. To get the Foster brand up to its proper fighting weight, it took a total overhaul of the school’s understanding and approach to digital media, codifying best practices and making channel-minded disciples of the school’s many stakeholders and content contributors.
Results was my aim, and I hit the mark: Over a 3-year window Foster saw audience major growth across social channels and site traffic, 675% growth in audience impressions and more than 300% growth in engagement, cementing value perceptions on an epic rankings climb to the top 25 business schools in the world and a reputation as a school that “seeks to better humanity through business.”
Principal duties + roles :
Content Strategy • Editorial Strategy + Management • Social Media Strategy • Social Media Production
Social Community + Engagement Management • Blog Editorial Strategy • Copywriting + Copy Editing
Photography + Videography • Adobe Premiere • Adobe Photoshop
Graphic Design • Blog and Social Analytics • Ambassador + Influencer Management • Client Management
Project Management • Executive + Thought Leadership Communications • Wordpress CMS Management
Development + Fundraising Communications • UX Research + Writing • Email Marketing
Kinetic social strategy
+ high-mileage content
Without a concerted social media strategy, the Foster School was missing out on literal millions of impressions and opportunities to elevate the brand, create student and donor prospect leads, and demonstrate the Foster value proposition. I got to work tailoring best practices, honing a “more engaging, less institutional” brand voice and style guide, and establishing and training up colleagues on editorial standards.
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The Foster Blog prior served as an ill-attended home for long form content. Revitalizing the site meant accepting that most of our readership did not take place on Foster Blog itself. Analyzing readership metrics reinforced a need for changes:
Repositioning Foster Blog as editorial foundation for a multichannel content approach, and as the UX terminus for interested readers referred by other platforms wanting to take a deep dive
Shifting editorial direction from a press release clearinghouse to experience-forward storytelling, heavily focusing on deeper focus on visual storytelling and foregrounding student voices.
Managing and training employees producing and coordinating content, and training students, faculty, and administration on dedicated best practices, strategies, and tactics for copy consistency, Wordpress production, and creating content with consideration to broader channel strategy and standards.
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Prior to the overhaul of the legacy Foster Blog, content was created in a “just-in-time” fashion, limiting the strategic possibilities of content and stymying cross-channel use.
I developed editorial best practices that ensured that time spent creating content by an extensive roster of contributors never missed an opportunity for broader reach.
Best practices included:
Including multiple points of view (student, faculty, guest, etc) and extensive photography, graphics, and video to enable the a single Foster Blog post to be parsed out into multiple distinct social media posts.
Better collective editorial practices and intra-school lines of communication to prevent blog content from being ideated and created in a siloed fashion.
Updating appropriate existing blogs to create a slate of evergreen blog content to cover more ground in editorial planning.
Conducted media training with faculty, students, and staff to better document classes and events by capturing photos, video, and strong excerpt quotes to be included in contributor blogs.
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Institutional voice is, simply put, old hat. I analyzed existing copy standards and shifted our approach to “voice” in our content, focusing on first-person storytelling from the Foster community. Coordination with contributors and story subjects allowed us “show, not tell” users about the Foster student experience and the school’s many value propositions.
#FosterFutures:
Bringing a Rebrand to Life
The first rebranding was about a name. The University of Washington Business School became the Michael G. Foster School of Business at UW. Easy peasy.
The second rebrand was about action.
As I began my time at this burgeoning business school, the "Foster. The Future.” rebranding had been initiated. With this new north star, it was my job to bring to life that moving of the Foster brand from a mentality of potential energy to kinetic.
To embody this within our blog and social properties, I applied a strategic content focus on unique and engaged student experience, world-class research faculty, and the entrepreneurial mindset, with the goal of effectively and evocatively conveying that a Foster education is not just about what’s next, but the impact students can make today in their communities and our wider economy.
The new brand and direction expressed through content strategy took the form of five sides to the Foster School value proposition:
#FosterInsight
#FosterInnovation
#FosterInclusion
#FosterProgress
#FosterFutures
The ongoing use of these hashtags created a storytelling “deep dive” for interested readers, allowing them more meaningful engagement of the aforementioned value propositions through exploring the tagged posts utilizing these hashtags.
The result has been tens of thousands of additional views and more meaningful engagement with the Foster brand.
Foster Blog Content
Click the images below to view full Foster Blog posts.
Social Media Content
All social posts below were composed, produced, and published by yours truly.
Digital Event Marketing
Alaska Airlines Day
An old friend comes back to campus. A thoughtful digital storytelling strategy helped ensure no moment was missed, and no special connection squandered on a day of celebration and insight.
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Partnering with the Alaska Airlines social media team, I organized, produced, and promoted the #FosterFliesAlaska Photo Content to drive engagement with the brand beyond the in-person event alone. Students could contribute travel photos via tagged Instagram posts, or by contributing video at the event itself declaring their dream travel destination.
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Social engagement between the Foster and Alaska Airlines brands was of critical importance in broadcasting this special relationship, namely to Alaska Airlines and Foster executives.
Focused care was paid to day-of engagement via Instagram Stories posts, utilizing comprehensive tagging and sharing to connect accounts for optimal social sharing to maximize audience and visibility.
Content Management + UX Design
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Foster School of Business Webite
The principal Foster School website runs on Wordpress, where I helped manage editorial cross-site ecosystem of content populated by the Foster Blog and the Foster Business Magazine websites, maximizing content reach to respective audiences. I also worked with academic programs, staff, and faculty to update, audit, and optimize all pages within the site.
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Foster Blog
In my strategic overhaul of the Foster Blog, this site now serves as the central hub for the Foster Community’s chorus of storytelling voices, and acts as the indispensable engine for the revamped multi-channel content approach that I strategized and implemented.
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The Seattle Connection
The alumni community is one of the Foster School’s greatest assets and perhaps its most stand-out value proposition. The school acts as a pipeline to the world’s foremost companies, especially those located in Seattle. This special landing page integrates existing relevant Foster storytelling (an example of the aforementioned “high-mileage” strategy), while integrating a concerted SEO keyword approach to better connect to users interested in business education and the Seattle business landscape.
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Fostering Diversity
Our modern moment begs that Foster Inclusion be more than a hashtag. This site serves as a venue for the varying resources, reports, communities, and histories that the UW Foster School offers to underrepresented business students and groups.