harvard university dining services & social media

HUDS & Social Media

HUDS is . . .Residential Dining for undergraduates and 2

graduate programs

Retail Dining (11 locations)

Catering

Card Services

Food Literacy Project

Foodservice planning

Traditional MarketingTrying to reach a diverse audience

through as many channels as available, with consistent, pro-active messages

Targeting “customers”

Using: Print Point-of-purchase Web (static) Limited email

Menu Mutiny – Spring 2008Students talking via House lists about HUDS

Real-time, emotional, not tied back to HUDS

Within 1 week, small, solvable issues became major problems

Realized need to “be where students are” – social media

Harvarddining.blogspot.com

Expanding Social Media Goals:

Message control Transparency Responsiveness Sales Loyalty and engagement Community

Facebook

Twitter.com/harvarddhall

Twitter.com/HUDSInfo

Next StepsApps?

Building followers

Finding “traction” based on a meeting of audience, media platforms, and messages

Education