How I Multiplied Creative Capacity
Through Strategic Partnerships
TL;DR: I designed a scalable creative network of students, successfully implemented a pilot team, and now have multiple departments paying full costs for producer positions that I co-manage.
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There are two age-old problems in higher ed that every social media manager must navigate:
Staff can't authentically showcase student life. You need actual students to get behind-the-scenes content that feels relevant to an institution’s culture.
The marketing team is always, always understaffed.
The solution seems obvious, right? Except, student workers are some of the most difficult employees you’ll ever manage. Low skill, high confidence, and viable to ghost you when classes get too overwhelming.
So when I took on 12 student workers at Colby, I knew I needed more than just good hiring. I needed systems, training, and strategic coordination that could work with their beautifully chaotic reality.
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At UNH, I saw the exact same problems. Every college needed authentic student content, but nobody could justify hiring enough creators individually. Who would teach them? Manage them?
But I had a dream. A 50+ student creative army embedded across all the colleges but centrally coordinated.
75/25 cost split between colleges and main communications
Specialized roles in photography, video, social, writing, event management
College communications managers handle day-to-day reporting and project assignments
Professionals from various departments within Central Comms—social, photo, editorial—coordinate with these students for strategic alignment and training
UNH paid me to develop the full proposal. Then decided it was "too ambitious" without proof of concept. Challenge accepted.
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I piloted the model at Paul College with a 10-person team we affectionately dubbed our “influencers.” It included:
3 short-form video specialists
2 photographers
1 social media manager
1 blog writer
1 tour guide
1 events coordinator
1 floater for chaos management
Each role filled specific strategic gaps on our marketing team. I provided mentorship on strategy, brand voice, and platform optimization alongside technical training. Our content production capabilities soared—and our capacity to have fun! All while staying on brand.
I didn’t manage them alone. My direct coworkers helped with the writer and event coordinator. A member of the undergraduate advising team managed our tour guide. And beyond that, we consistently coordinated with the main brand’s marketing team. My students had access to a smorgasbord of professionals in various fields.
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When I got to Dartmouth, I was back to square one. Same problems, different campus. The communications team had no student creators, but they needed authentic student content to bolster engagement on accounts focused on institutional initiatives, brand awareness, and reputation building. (Every audience in higher ed loves student content—students, want-to-be students, former students, and people who care about students.)
But this time I was on the main brand team, which meant I could establish partnerships by reaching out instead of asking to be let in.So I approached the Admissions team: "You have student creators, we need student content. What if we collaborated?"
In this partnership model:I co-manage their 5 video students and ideate with the admissions team
I provide technical videography expertise + strategic guidance
They handle day-to-day management and project assignment
Content serves both departments' strategic needs
They fully fund the positions
The organic expansion:
Students are now on waitlists to participate (good problem to have)
The Hopkins Center and The College of Arts & Sciences saw our results and are now joining the partnership under the same model
Instead of managing student teams directly, I finally launched my collaborative network. Departments get authentic student content and professional expertise. Students get high-level training. I get to multiply creative capacity without the administrative overhead.
When our average LinkedIn impressions per post dropped 42% despite posting 63% more higher-quality content, the math wasn't mathing. Our engagement rate actually went up 15%—people who saw our content still loved it. LinkedIn just wasn't showing it to anyone.
Most social media "failures" are strategy problems. But this felt different. We'd improved our content mix, increased our output, and our audience was just as engaged as ever. Something systemic was happening.
I started digging into our data and found two things that changed everything. First, our baseline metrics were skewed by a viral hit from the previous year—classic data pollution. But the second discovery was the real killer: link posts were failing.
Not to toot my own horn (on my portfolio website, where it deserves to be tooted) but I suspected this was happening long before I had the data to back it up. LinkedIn changed their link format in mid-2024 and it was… ugly. Plus the compressed preview took up less feed space. It was obvious links weren’t going to perform well. Plus, it’s classic platform politics: none of them want people going off the platform, so links never perform as well as other content.
But this was bigger than I expected. Link posts were seeing 65% fewer impressions than visual content—a death sentence for any content strategy built on driving traffic. Turns out, we weren't alone.
As I expanded my research, a pattern emerged across the entire B2B landscape. Multiple industry sources documented what they called an "organic reach crisis" beginning January 2025. Previously successful content strategies were cratering everywhere. Posts that generated 35,000+ views were now averaging 8,000. Content that normally received 200+ reactions was struggling to hit 35. Our timeline and metrics matched these patterns exactly.I also discovered these industry-wide platform patterns:
Reports indicate promoted company content has jumped from ~16% to ~25% of feed inventory.
Employee-shared content now generates 2.75x more impressions than company posts
Personal profiles maintain 20-30% organic reach
Marketers estimate company pages are capped at 2% maximum reach
LinkedIn had systematically restructured its algorithm to prioritize "knowledge and advice" content from recognized experts posting within their professional domains. They weren't just tweaking the algorithm—they were fundamentally changing what LinkedIn is. The platform that built itself on company pages was now actively suppressing them to force paid promotion. Classic Facebook move.
Based on this analysis, I developed a format-first strategy that works within LinkedIn's new constraints rather than fighting them:
Carousels Are King: Document-style carousels under 9 slides consistently outperform every other format. They keep people on-platform (LinkedIn loves that), allow for storytelling depth, and get prioritized in the algorithm. Plus, they're shareable in a way single posts aren't.
Links as Garnish, Not the Main Course: LinkedIn just confirmed that photo posts with links in the text aren't penalized—as long as the content delivers value without the click. Perfect. I shifted our strategy to create posts where the link is a bonus, not the point. The content stands alone, the engagement happens on-platform, and interested users can click through if they want more.
No-Click Content Strategy: This is the real shift in thinking. Instead of using social to drive traffic, I believe companies should use it to deliver value directly. Educational carousels, insight-rich photo posts, native video—content that accomplishes our goals without requiring anyone to leave LinkedIn. The platform rewards us with reach, the audience rewards us with engagement, and we build authority without fighting the algorithm.
The beauty of this approach is that it's easily implementable. No employee training, no executive buy-in, no organizational change management. Just a tactical shift that aligns with platform incentives while still achieving our strategic goals.
My framework is in leadership’s hands now —clear, tactical, and ready to measure. The real power of this work isn’t just the immediate fix, but the repeatable process: diagnose, contextualize, adapt, and stay ahead of platform shifts.
When LinkedIn Changed the Rules:
Diagnosing a 42% Drop in Average Post Impressions
TL;DR: Most of the time it’s not the algorithm. It’s you. Except when it’s the algorithm.