Let’s talk about summer. You remember summer, right?

Summer presents an interesting challenge for Twillyp. The campus buzz that normally fuels our content creation quiets down, and the geese-to-people ratio tends to skew out of our favor. With our jet-setting, sun-bathing, nap-taking audience enjoying a few stress-free months away from campus, we needed to figure out how to connect in a way that felt good and authentic.

Enter #TwillypSummer.

We wondered if, instead of bringing content to our followers, our followers could bring content to us. We asked students to use the hashtag to take us with them on summer break.

To promote the campaign, we wanted to create a video that showcased care-free summer spirit with a WP twist. We envisioned a hip, fast-paced summer day that illustrated the idea of bringing Twillyp with you.

Armed with every piece of William Paterson swag we could find, Kim, Catalina, Jess and I took the two hour drive down to Seaside.

Behind the Scenes: Typical day at the office. — **Behind the Scenes**: Typical day at the office.

Some of our scenes were planned in advance; someone could lounge around in a WP hoodie, someone could toss a WP frisbee, we could write #TwillypSummer in the sand.

And then, some of our shots came from on-site inspiration; “What if Cat got a WP henna tattoo?” “What if we bought a tacky Twillyp spraypainted hat?” “What if this cute lifeguard held the Twillyp whistle?”

These shots happen to be my favorites, and speak to why I am not a huge advocate of over-planning. That spur-of-the-moment inspiration has created so many special moments for us. The spontaneity and surprise of those shots produced a unique kind of energy that really brought our video to life.

This video was a breakthrough for us. It felt like we were finally creating the kind of content we had always dreamed of. The scenes were action-packed, the editing was razor sharp and the song was a top 40 hit.

The overall campaign was a success. Students used the hashtag to submit nearly 200 photos, tweets and videos that shared Caribbean beach getaways, volunteer work, summer classes, baseball games, internships and road trips.

All shared content was placed in a Storify feed, where #TwillypSummer can live on even in the depths of winter.