KU increases content contributors 9x to enhance family engagement

Many colleges and universities have recognized the value of communicating with parents and families. Schools often tell us it’s not the why or even the how that challenges their teams — but what to share.

Enter the University of Kansas, our CampusESP MVP winner for Q1 2022! KU has spent their first year utilizing CampusESP to develop consistent and engaging communications for their families, creating an impressive cross-campus network of content contributors. 

While CampusESP is co-owned by the Orientation & Transition Programs office within Academic Affairs and Student Affairs, both teams knew parents wanted and needed details from many other experts around KU. By building relationships with communicators in key departments, and empowering them to be direct contributors to the KU family portal, the team has been able to dramatically scale their number of content contributors by an amazing 833%, delivering insightful parent content without increasing their workload.

The initial goal: Build internal connection and cut out social media

When KU partnered with CampusESP to engage current families in May of 2021, they had a clear timeline in mind: be live for orientation. 

“We launched originally just for orientation and curated all our original content with a welcome week focus,” said Alex Cruse, Assistant Director, Orientation and Family Engagement at The University of Kansas. “We started with pertinent campus partners, like recreation services, housing, and health services, and I went directly to each and let them know what they could do with the portal and its features. From there, our partnerships and relying on them started.”

Cruse worked with these teams to build out an orientation hub full of the most requested topics for families and their students. Her goal was to provide clear, accessible information to help new KU families feel welcome and secure. She also realized that by doing this, she was eliminating the need for parents to go looking for information in the wrong places … like on social media.

“There was a desire to rely less on a Facebook group for parents and guests, knowing we were trying to put all the right information out, but that it could go off the rails,” said Cruse. “On Facebook we weren’t able to vet or monitor, and it led to people talking about inaccurate things. Working with CampusESP allowed us to have a platform, and give parents pertinent information, but ensure the content was sanctioned by the institution. We want our parents and guests to get their information directly from the source and get it in the way they’d like to.”

As the CampusESP experience went live, the team simultaneously phased out the Student Affairs Facebook page, bulk uploading the names of all the individuals who had been following the page into the portal. From that first push adding about 3,700 individuals, mostly first-year parents, the KU Family Connection grew to the 15,000+ families now receiving updates.

Expanding and creating a campus-wide news team

The topic that garners the most clicks from parents at KU? Housing. Cruse says posts from student housing never fail to get engagement.

With orientation a success, Cruse began to think about how the network that had just helped her could continue to contribute value throughout the academic year.

“It felt natural for partnerships to form,” says Cruse. “We knew these offices had information to share all year long. Some other campus partners had heard about the portal because they were part of the vetting process. We realized we could make this work for a lot of people on campus.”

When the family portal launched for orientation, Cruse was one of three admins in the system. But more senior administrators saw the value of sharing content with parents. More people heard the buzz about the engagement Cruse’s team was seeing. And the list of partners began to grow. By the end of August, she had nine additional contributors from a variety of departments, sharing everything from mental health hotline information to how to order treat baskets during finals week.

The result? A continually-operating cross-campus news room, with communicators in various departments gathering their area’s most valuable information and filing articles and announcements each month. Cruse has provided content contributor access to the portal to most of these partners, and some have even graduated to becoming CampusESP power users in their own right. Today there are 28 total content admins across KU — that’s an 833% increase in just one year.

“During the academic year I’m just vetting things that come through and helping as issues arise — it’s all very hands off for me, and it's been awesome.”

Advice for building your own network: just ask

While the building of the KU contributor network started off strategically, its growth was most definitely organic and fueled by the positive experiences and results of those first partners. Cruse says replicating the model is something most schools should consider.

“Start by thinking about who has high touches with families. Think about the offices you get the most questions from parents about,” said Cruse. “For me in orientation, that was easily housing, how to meet people, and health and wellness, so that’s where we started. Once you know where the questions are, think about who owns that who you could partner with to create that content.”

Cruse also leaned on her own network at the university, asking senior level staff in Student Affairs to make inroads or help identify who the right contact in another department should be. 

“We don’t tend to get a lot of people not interested, but if we get push back, we’ve been able to just be confident in how we talk about CampusESP. We talk about the why, and the reach we have through parents. Use the evidence in the portal about click rates and engagement stats. Going back to the data has been helpful for us through all programming, but especially with the portal to have people buy into the process and see the value.

“The truth is without the network and the CampusESP portal, I wouldn’t be able to connect with parents and guests like we do. With the workload I have now, it would be a lot … too much. But having our partners log in and the portal build the newsletter for us has been awesome. And it makes our campus partners feel valued and want to keep contributing.”