COSSPP Communications

Our team transformed communications at Florida State University’s College of Social Sciences and Public Policy (COSSPP) between 2022 and 2025.

FSU’s College of Social Sciences and Public Policy is home to 12 departments and interdisciplinary programs and 11 centers and institutes. As the third largest college at FSU, COSSPP helps more than 5,000 students each year along their academic journeys. Our 55,000+ alumni work around the globe to address the world’s challenges and to better their communities.

Before December 2021, COSSPP’s communication efforts were limited in scope. Social media engagement was minimal, the website lacked dynamic content, and there were few structured outreach efforts. Communications focused on news story generation for traditional media, limited event promotion for the college’s most prominent events, and magazine production but did not emphasize digital marketing, student engagement, or a strategic internship program. 

COSSPP Director of Communications Rebecca Sage joined the college in December 2021. She led efforts to modernize and expand COSSPP’s communications efforts with college leadership and key partners within the college, including COSSPP’s Web Team, Assistant Director of Student and Alumni Engagement Elizabeth Jones, and COSSPP’s Chairs and Directors through the creation of COSSPP’s Communications Internship Program.

Our newly developed Communications Internship Program includes 12 student interns at the undergraduate and graduate levels who develop communications for current and prospective students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends, and the communities beyond impacted by our work. Our students develop skills critical for workplace readiness and leave with comprehensive portfolios showcasing their writing, design, photography, and project management skills.

To modernize and expand COSSPP’s communication efforts, we implemented the following initiatives:

•    Developed four distinct news categories: General News, Student Spotlights, Alumni Spotlights, and Research Spotlights.
•    Increased content production from a handful of stories per month to 864 published news stories across categories since 2022.
•    Archived and migrated content from "Wicked Problems. Wicked Solutions." blog to the college website for long-term accessibility.
•    Incorporated photo and video content created by our team to enhance storytelling and audience engagement.
•    Used dynamic integrations to improve accessibility, including publishing all photos to Flickr and embedding albums in news stories, allowing readers to download images in multiple resolutions.

•    Provided content support for our WordPress Multisite with 27 individual sites.
•    Worked with COSSPP’s Web Team upon arrival to update COSSPP’s sites to FSU’s current Strata Theme, to comply with branding and accessibility requirements
•    Standardized sections of our sites and enhanced links to reduce content maintenance burden.
•    Developed dynamic homepage feeds featuring news stories, media mentions, and events.
•    Implemented Google Analytics to track user activity, witnessing growth from an average of 20,000 monthly active users in 2022 to over 27,000 in 2024.
•    Updated COSSPP’s domain to align with current branding.

•    Took on full graphic design responsibility for Engage Magazine, previously outsourced, and redesigned the layout to improve readability. Engage Magazine has a circulation of 15,500 alumni via direct mail and 36,000+ alumni and active students via email (Salesforce).
•    Updated master’s program marketing materials (tri-folds, web brochures, flyers, and web graphics) to align with FSU’s new brand identity.
•    Created event and promotional designs in Adobe.
•    Developed custom Canva templates for departmental branding consistency.

•    Built a photo library of thousands of images showcasing student and faculty life, events, and professional headshots.
•    Developed video content to enhance storytelling and brand engagement. Key video projects included COSSPP’s 50th Anniversary videos, including full-length and short-cut options; The Future is Made In Bellamy (COSSPP students get more than a degree) with student engagement and donor engagement video options; and most recently COSSPP’s 2025 Design Sprint: Rapid Relocation.
•    Established a centralized repository for high-quality images, categorized for easy accessibility and distribution.

•    Created surveys to streamline data collection for stories.
•    Structured a COSSPP Communications Internship Program to enhance communications services for units and provide students with hands-on experience in writing, design, photography, and project management.
•    Created comprehensive training manuals (style guides, email templates, social media guidelines) to streamline onboarding.
•    Established a Microsoft Teams workspace for collaboration among 10-12 interns and specific college partners, streamlining workflow and project management to ensure consistency and efficiency.
•    Created a database to track accurate information for news stories and website updates.
•    Developed a SharePoint site for the communications team to share final work products, including graphics, publications, policies, and other materials for COSSPP 200+ faculty and staff, including our communications policies and procedures and instructions for work requests.

•    Revamped strategy across COSSPP social media platforms, leading to significant growth on the platforms most used by our audiences, with LinkedIn followers increasing 369% (from 631 to 2,919) and Instagram audience growth of 132% (from 1,676 to 3,896).
•    Provided tailored communications services to academic units participating in the COSSPP Communications Internship Program, leading to significant social media expansion for each unit—several units grew from zero to thousands of followers in months. Partners included: 
      o    Departments of Economics
      o    Departments of Geography
      o    Departments of Sociology
      o    Departments of Urban and Regional Planning
      o    Reubin O’D. Askew School of Public Administration and Policy
      o    Interdisciplinary Social Science
      o    International Affairs
      o    Center for Demography and Population Health
      o    Civil Rights Institute

•    Migrated COSSPP to Salesforce Marketing Cloud, improving outreach to our communities, including students, faculty, staff and alumni.
•    Created new newsletters targeting key audiences: 
      o    Alumni & Friends Newsletter (31,000+ recipients quarterly)
      o    Monthly Newsletter (5,000+ students, faculty & staff monthly)
      o    Research Roll Call (200+ faculty & staff 3x a year)
•    Standardized newsletter templates and branding across multiple departments.
•    Facilitated unit-specific communications and campus-wide announcements.
•    Created detailed policies and procedures training for users with FSU’s Salesforce Analyst

•    Spearheaded major engagement campaigns, including The Future is Made in Bellamy (COSSPP students get more than a degree) and COSSPP 50th Anniversary.
•    Provided communications support for student organizations, helping promote events and opportunities through news stories, social media, digital displays, and newsletters.

This comprehensive transformation of COSSPP’s communications strategy resulted in exponential audience growth, enhanced storytelling, and stronger student, alumni, and faculty engagement.