A couple weeks ago, Bates College was on The Simpsons. I found out on a Sunday evening via Facebook, where a friend mentioned he had just seen the show poking fun at Bates. Next, I checked Yik Yak, where some of our students were talking about seeing it as well.

Because Simpsons episodes and clips are only available via subscription and aren’t posted until the day after they air, I wasn’t able to view the clip right away. The next morning, I tracked it down:

In a nutshell, the plotline was this: Lisa Simpson had nearly won a derby in her solar car, but stalled out before the finish line when the Duff blimp blocked the sun (d’oh!). Mocking her defeat, several boys told her, in succession, to “stick to the liberal arts, honey,” wished her luck at Oberlin, jokingly suggested she could then transfer to Bates, sarcastically told her to “enjoy Maine in the winter,” and — the coup de grace — offered: “I hope you like Division III basketball!” In the next scene, of course, Lisa was crying.

My first reaction was: whaaaaaat?? These barbs were so arbitrary, yet so specific. They came out of nowhere. They were also, obviously, very funny.

My next reaction was to wonder how we might respond to this in a constructive way. After all, we were just on The Simpsons, a staple of American culture watched by millions of people around the world — including many who may be considering their options for college, along with their parents.

I brought the question to my boss and our leadership team. One colleague suggested our Dean of Admission could be on video inviting Lisa to apply. That ended up feeling more elaborate than necessary, but it put us on the path to what we ultimately ended up doing: using our social channels to recap the moment, console Lisa, and underscore one of our key messages, which was our upcoming application deadline.

I went back to the video, screencapped a few frames with closed captioning turned on, and created a comic strip. After shopping it around with key stakeholders and receiving the blessing of our copyright gurus that the image did not infringe on FOX’s intellectual property, we shared it on our channels with an important message for Lisa and a link to our Application page:

 

The response was instantaneous, and really gratifying. Our fans liked, commented, and shared the post more than just about any content we have ever created. Pretty soon, the Chronicle of Higher Education picked up the story, noting that, “rather than lick its wounds over the slight, the college decided to own the joke.” The Bangor Daily News followed suit, as did Boston.com.

After we posted it, we also put $100 behind Facebook ads directed at high school-age students whose interests suggested they may be considering colleges like Bates. The results were encouraging:

• The ad was shown to 117,950 Facebook users
• 22,996 of them took some action — the vast majority clicking to view the photo. Of the rest:
  • 185 liked the post
  • 13 shared it
  • 11 liked the Bates College page
  • 3 commented on the post
  • …and, most critically, 81 clicked the link to our Apply page

So, a nice moment for Bates, and a good opportunity to explore some creative social engagement. For me, the takeaway is about the importance of being nimble: because we were trusted to move quickly in response to this opportunity, we were able to seize it and be up with these posts less than 24 hours after the episode aired.

Unlike most of our social engagement, this wasn’t something we could create; we could only react. And we didn’t have to — if we had let the Simpsons mention pass, most likely no one would have said a word. But because we were empowered to be responsive, we could make something substantive and clever — and in perfect alignment with our strategic goals — out of that rare moment.

That nimbleness is critical in this space. It’s also a lot of fun.