Permanent link for How we hosted a virtual graduate celebration for the GVSU Class of 2020 on May 7, 2020

Written By Meagan Saxton

When GVSU President Philomena V. Mantella announced remote learning would continue through the Winter 2020 semester in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most popular questions was: what about commencement?

Celebrating our class of 2020 and their achievements was, and still is, important to us. We knew that whatever was planned – it wouldn’t be the same as an April ceremony at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids.

The decision made was to postpone the in-person ceremony to October and host a virtual graduate celebration on the GVSU Facebook and YouTube pages. While we have broadcasted events on YouTube, a virtual commencement was a new concept for all of us. Here is a breakdown of what we did and how we did it.

Film and edit the virtual celebration video.

We give major kudos to the GVSU video team for filming and editing the full celebration. It included a message from President Mantella, Provost Maria Cimitile, clips submitted by each of the deans of GVSU’s eight colleges, names of all the graduates (3,000+) and it closed with a musical performance from a graduating senior. The virtual celebration’s length came in just under 40 minutes.

Promote the celebration ahead of time.

Of course, we had to get the word out. President Mantella announced in a Zoom town hall with current students and on her Twitter that there would be a virtual celebration. We also posted about the celebration on all GVSU social platforms a week in advance and the day before.

Choosing the best platform for a virtual celebration: Facebook and YouTube Premiere.

We chose to host the video on our Facebook and YouTube channels because we knew a majority of our audience would be able to find the celebration on one of those pages. We also chose those two platforms for the live comment functionality. By utilizing the premiere setting on Facebook, we were able to upload the video ahead of time. Doing so created an event on the GVSU page and alerted people following the page when the video went live. The premiere setting on YouTube also allowed us to upload the video ahead of time and created a countdown screen.

Once it was time for the video to go live, the GVSU Social team watched on both platforms to make sure it went off without any issues and to monitor comments. 

Additional commencement content.

We knew this was not the usual ending for graduating students, but we wanted to still celebrate our class of 2020 with commencement-specific content.

This included: an Instagram AR filter with a graduation cap; class of 2020 graphics for Facebook and Twitter headers and Instagram Stories; an infographic with the number of graduates, dean’s list students, top undergrad and graduate degrees and more. Other GVSU social accounts created content, such as congratulatory messages from GVSU alumni.

How it went.

This was a successful and unique way to celebrate the class of 2020 without hosting an in-person ceremony. Peak viewership on YouTube reached 1,284 and on Facebook it reached 958. During the time of the celebration, some of our followers posted photos of them watching while wearing their cap and gown. We retweeted and reshared some of these photos on our Instagram story. To date, the video has received more than 47,789 views of at least 3 seconds on Facebook and 8,993 views on YouTube. We’re looking forward to the day we can celebrate the class of 2020 in-person!

Watch the video on YouTube here.

Categories: engagement
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