#WMUAviation

Posted by Matthew Bila on

Published by Shelbi Tierney on Thu, Mar 26, 2015 @ 01:47 PM

#WMUAviation
Josh Blain
Aviation Flight Science

Through my job as an Aviation Ambassador for Western Michigan University’s College of Aviation, I’ve gotten to do some pretty cool things: show off the College of Aviation to the assistant Chief Pilot of JetBlue, fly into many different aviation events, and most importantly meet hundreds of prospective Broncos and find out my job made an impact on them choosing WMU. However, there’s another job I do that just as important, but without all the outward attention.

For the last several years I’ve been the administrator for our Facebook and Twitter pages (and newly created Instagram profile), and loved every second of it. When I started as an Aviation Ambassador our social media footprint was small to say the least. At that time we still had a personal profile, one where a prospective student had to request to connect with us. We also had a separate fan page which mainly posted automated content from our blog with limited engagement. In addition, our twitter profile was in its infancy after another aviation ambassador created the profile. Our department was rather lost when it came to social media at that time, we had no sole author which really hampered our potential due to the multiple “voices” our ambassadors’ posted with.

When I first started my job I really had no formal social media training outside of using Facebook in my personal life for the previous five years. However, I was up for the challenge and was willing to learn quickly. I soon learned that I was the only student directly running a social media account at Western Michigan University and a collegiate aviation program, something that I think I can credit the success of our accounts. WMU Aviation on Facebook has become to have the largest audience amongst the various colleges pages at WMU, all while being the smallest in terms of students. Our engagement on Facebook and twitter consistently beats other collegiate aviation programs. I think a student who is actively engaged in the program brings a different voice and ideas, ones that other prospective and current students can relate to. I find some of the most rewarding parts of my job comes from social media, the joy I see in a tweet when I follow a prospective student cannot be matched. I also pride myself on addressing a majority of tweets and posts in a very timely matter, I’ve been known to tweet well past traditional business hours. In fact, one time a prospective student tweeted the College of Aviation, Embry Riddle, and the University of North Dakota. I jumped at the occasion and responded first, and this left a lasting impact on the student.

 I recently launched the newest social media account, an Instagram profile. Instagram is the new and up incoming social media platforms among prospective students, its primary focus is to post and share pictures. Our students are constantly taking and posting awesome pictures from their flights, labs, class, or just around the campus. This makes my job very easy since a majority of my posts are regrams or shares of these posts. This creates a large visual identity for prospective students to see and pride within our students. Within a week, the Instagram profile already received over 100 followers, and our posts were favorited over 300 times, becoming one of the most active collegiate aviation programs on Instagram. This job has really opened my eyes to a career as a social media administrator for an aviation company, something that I am considering as a complement to the traditional piloting career I intended to achieve. Now all I need to do is find a job that entails flying and tweeting! Having run the social media for the last few years, I realize my time at WMU will be coming to an end and thus time to hand off the task of posting to another diligent #AvGeek, I just hope they can share the drive, dedication, and sometimes the witty or puny sense of humor that I have.

Don’t be afraid to connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, I look forward to seeing you there.

#WMUAviation #GoWest.