Over the past year I have been following 200+ colleges and universities on Instagram. The utility of that social media space is easy for me to grasp. My work clearly can benefit from Instagram. But hey, photos are my world.
Instagram is a great place to visually differentiate yourself from others by way of an image or short video clip. From what I’ve observed, each institution I follow has a different twist on visualizing themselves. Some concentrate on campus scenes others on events or social life and others on sports. What surprised me most is how many of the 240+ Instagram feeds I follow rarely post. What a lost opportunity.
Of course I have a visual bias, but the simplicity of using Instagram with it’s incredible reach (more than 200 Million users) is reason enough. BusinessInsider in December 2014 reported that 85-percent of teens use it as their go-to network. It’s pretty hard to ignore the opportunity an institution can leverage to get the attention college-bound students.
On a later post, I will talk about a few colleges that I think are doing it right and it will not be a listicle.