Behind the Screens: LSE’s Journey to Social Media Stardom

by Lina Filippidi, Head of Social Media, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a world-leading university, unique in its dedication to the social sciences. It first opened its doors in 1895 with three rooms and 200 students. Today, it has grown into an international community of people and ideas that transform the world, staying true to its founding purpose ‘to know the causes of things, for the betterment of society.’

We celebrate our vibrant community, active in London and worldwide, on our eight social media channels across Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok. Content made by the in-house team or student contributors we work with showcases our School’s academic excellence, cultural diversity, public engagements, and global impact, to an audience of circa 2.5 million in total worldwide.

With London as our campus, brilliant students, and a rich collection of research expertise, we have a great starting point. In today’s ever-changing digital landscape with seasoned users though, it takes more than a pretty backdrop or just an interesting topic to create good social media content. Audiences like to receive content in ways native to the platforms, that feel organic and engaging. Assimilating these trends, we have taken on a new approach to creating and sharing content on our channels: short-form vertical videos and interactive posts. How to highlight our international student body? We launched a world food series made by students for students! How to intrigue our followers in our topical open-access blog content? We introduced weekly LinkedIn polls that aim to halt your scrolling and gamify knowledge exchange!

This approach has allowed us to remain relevant on social media platforms and yet continue to create spaces for our online community to discuss, learn, and engage in a high-quality two-way conversation with LSE. We proudly manage to foster our community, form a new generation of thought leaders, advocate for the value of the social sciences, and become the global convenor of influential debate on critical issues.

Our work was shortlisted in four categories this year’s UK Social Media Awards: Best Use of Instagram; Best Use of TikTok; Best Use of LinkedIn; and Best Social Media Innovation.

Global Politics Series trailers on Instagram

In a year of more than 40 elections, our experts had a lot to say about key elections. To showcase this and jump in on topical discussions, at the beginning of 2024 we launched our Global Politics series. A continuation of our earlier UK Economy series that ran in 2023, this series of mid-length videos shared on YouTube explores the debates at the forefront of politics and the implications of key elections around the globe. To promote the series to a wider audience, we created a campaign with short-form vertical trailers for Instagram. In the same look and feel as the YouTube ones, this campaign stands out, spotlighting LSE expertise and offering clear educational value, in an otherwise saturated media environment of too-much-information.

Polling LSE followers on LinkedIn

To respond to the challenge of increasing the engagement of LSE content on a platform dominated by business and professional content, we introduced weekly posts using the poll functionality to communicate messages about our university’s history, people, and research in an engaging way. Using creative audience engagement tools like polls allows us to grab attention on LinkedIn feeds and communicate in an interactive way for the platform that enables users to feel part of a two-way conversation.

Inspiring the next generation of social scientists

Based on the premise that our younger audiences would be more likely to engage with academic research findings if they heard about it from their peers, we launched a series of short-form videos, with a casual and personalised tone, presented by students. By pivoting to students as presenters, we were able to introduce research in an accessible, relatable and appealing way, appropriate for platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Throughout the series, we have been able talk about a wide variety of topics, from text analysis to citizenship schemes and workplace issues. This is an innovative way of sharing research content online that brings together all parts of our community in knowledge exchange.

Sharing our vibrant international community on TikTok

Our TikTok page is one of our most sought-after channels. It’s got a varied tone, with content ranging from research videos with world-leading academics, to relatable trending audio videos and wholesome student experience snippets. LSE is made up of its people first and foremost, and this really comes across on our TikTok, where we have purposedly focused on highlighting our community. Having people feature in our videos not only helps us bring to life our brand values, student experience, and social science niches, – it also gives us a more personal identity that sets us apart from other university pages.

Of Their Shortlist Nomination the Team Says

As Head of the Social Media team at LSE, I feel incredibly proud that our social media content has been nominated in this year’s UK Social Media Awards. This recognition reflects the hard work, creativity, and dedication of our entire communications team at LSE to engage and inspire our community through innovative and impactful messages. To be acknowledged alongside big brands and creative agencies is a big achievement, especially for a small in-house university team. We are honoured.

Olivia Broome, Social Media Manager at LSE, said: “It was such an exciting moment to be told that we’d been nominated for all four categories we entered for! One of the best challenges with my role is turning our research into engaging content which resonates with our audience, so to be in the running for our LinkedIn poll work is endlessly rewarding already. Can’t wait to see what we can achieve as a team on the night!”

Grace Chapman, Creative Content Producer at LSE, said: “What an incredible way to mark our work in the Social Media team! We have worked so hard to reach this point and I feel so lucky to work with such supportive, creative and collaborative colleagues. During my time as Creative Content Producer, we have seen our follower count on TikTok grow from in the hundreds to now being over 10K so I’m particularly proud to see our student research series and our TikTok account nominated. Congrats to the team and the wider LSE community who support our work!”

Mike Wilkerson, Video Producer at LSE, said: “When I heard the news that we had been nominated for all the categories we entered I was over the moon! Even though I knew that we would do it. I feel so proud. I always hope that the content I create resonates with our audience, but rarely know whether I have made a real impact, so a nomination like this for such an award really gives me and my work that sweet justification. Excited to see how we do as a team on the night.”

LSE social media channels:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lseps
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/londonschoolofeconomics
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/school/london-school-of-economics/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lse
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theLondonSchoolofEconomics
• X: https://x.com/LSEnews
• Threads: https://www.threads.net/@londonschoolofeconomics