This blog is part of a special series of informal posts to help campus activity boards find resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. We hope you find them useful.
-The ArtistHub Team
As we near graduation, a hot topic for planning the upcoming year is the ever-popular activity and involvement fairs – the quintessential place for incoming students to find out what clubs and organizations to join.
While face to face interactions are best, creating additional (virtual) opportunities for students to discover clubs that pique their interest is essential to continuing to provide an excellent experience.
When creating a virtual experience for a typically physical interaction, keep in mind all activities won’t translate exactly and attempting to force them to, will likely end in less success than desired.
Here are a few ideas I’ve found:
VIDEO COMMERCIALS
Have student organizations create short 30-60 seconds videos on their organization, what they do, and why students should join. If you are posting online, you might have students include an intro slide that says the organization name, email, and url (if applicable).
You can then embed the videos as a gallery on a web page. To make it easier to navigate, consider creating headings and categorizing the videos by organization type – (for example) Special Interest, Sport Clubs, Religious, Departmental/Professional, Honors/Leadership, and Fraternity/Sorority.
YouTube or Vimeo?
Since the videos are more for private use, Vimeo is a better option for this. If you need to reduce the file size of your videos (Vimeo has upload caps on the free tier) – use QuickTime Player to export as a lower resolution file before uploading.
Where to host/post?
Custom Web Page
There are numerous options for DIY web page creation – Wix.com, Weebly.com, WordPress. We’ll create and share a sample gallery webpage in next week’s update.
Showcase on Social Media
Direct upload videos – consider uploading these videos to Instagram or Facebook stories and offer prizes for students to interact and follow your account.
ONLINE TOOLS
One of the organizations we work with is testing how Hopin next month – https://hopin.to – for a virtual expo of student businesses. As a backup, they’re also creating a webpage that showcases each org in a gallery. I’ll follow up on their experience with this tool mid-May after their event.
Another option is Scavity – https://www.scavify.com/ – a scavenger hunt tool to help engage students with campus.
CUSTOM LINK PAGE
Northwestern University found success for the SOA Office by setting up a link page via Linktr.ee – check out their example here https://linktr.ee/soa_nu
SIMPLE OPTIONS
Have organizations submit a PowerPoint slide and compile them into one PDF for distribution.
Have organizations create a graphic to share on social media. Use Canva.com, a free and easy to use graphic creation tool, no expert designer required.
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My personal recommendation – a simple gallery style page that has content for all organizations seems to be a good option that can be used throughout the year when students are looking to get engaged. It may take a little more technical expertise, which is why I am going to put one together as an example.
Each university is different, so what works for one, may be different than what works for another. Try a few options out!
