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WELCOME TO THE COSM WEB TEAM.
LET’S TALK INSTAGRAM.
This style guide will assist you in maintaining CoSM
social brand consistency and give you a reference
framework for keeping posted images ‘on brand’
and focused. Our Instagram account is an
extension of our college brand. This guide will help
you think about the way our photos look next to
each other and how they all look together, helping
you make conscious decisions on everything from
content and composition to captions and crop.
Every component matters when it comes to how
you portray a brand on social media, and
Instagram is no exception. Whether it’s a picture of
a campus building, classroom, student, or event,
when our photo pops up in someone’s feed, we
want them to know immediately that it’s from the
College of Science & Mathematics at Wright State.
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UNDERSTAND OUR AUDIENCE.
PRIMARY.
Potential students. High school age teens with
interests in science and mathematics, and/or want
to pursue a higher education in these fields.
SECONDARY.
Current students.
TERTIARY.
Alumni. Faculty and staff.
The intended goal of our Instagram initiative is to
connect more heavily with the high school
demographic, providing them an authentic and
attractive look at what it’s like to be a Wright State
CoSM raider.
Our communications from Instagram will be
consistently catered with our primary audience in
mind. While we also encourage followership and
engagement from current students, alumni, faculty,
and staff, appealing to potential students is our
number one priority for this platform.
The following identity guide is tailored appropriately
in efforts to reach this intended target.
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MOOD.
Bold. Modern. Advancing.
COLOR PALETTE.
The CoSM color palette is dark blue, green, & gold.
Accent colors include white, black, and red. You’ll
find many of these colors reflected in our campus
buildings and natural areas. When selecting
images, try to play up this palette by picking up on
shades and tints of these colors. It will create a
bold, vibrant, and coordinated feed with a unified
aesthetic.
FILTER.
The best filter is no filter. Authenticity is key.
Editing is a way to keep our images looking great
together even though the subject matter is different. A
filter will help keep consistency sometimes, but they can
be very limiting and overused. Naturally some photos
will be brighter or darker, so a preset filter may not look
the same on each photo. It’s not recommended to
publish a photo by simply slapping a filter on it; take
color, sharpness, brightness, exposure and other
editing effects into consideration to provide consistency
and high quality imagery.
If a filter is deemed necessary or appropriate, try using
VSCOcam filters (third-party editor app) or Ludwig,
Hudson, Valencia, or Mayfair in Instagram, at reduced
strength. Avoid adding too much lux.
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CROP.
1x1. Square crop all images.
Creates a clean, uniform, professional feed.
Use a third-party editor (like Squaready) to add
white space to compensate Instagram layout with
a different crop size; this is only to be used under
unavoidable circumstances where square cropping
would cut persons or objects of incredible value
from image, and is not ideal.
Most phones, tablets, and cameras take photos in
a rectangular format (3x5, 4x6, etc). Understand
this size difference, and compensate your shot
accordingly to accommodate a square crop. Note
that some devices allow you to set your shooting
viewfinder to square or 1x1; this is recommended
to easily compose a CoSM perfect shot!
Refrain from collage-style photos (i.e. using apps
like PicStitch to combine multiple photos into one
postable image). Typically the use of one strong
statement photos is better received than an
overwhelming collection of stitched photos. Under
certain circumstances, a collage can be fitting;
however, use sparingly at best.
✓ correct square crop
! white space; use sparingly
ex: square crop feed
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THREAD.
Instagram is all about story telling. A thread should
be woven through all our images. It doesn't have to
show up in each and every photo, but it should
show up in a lot of them. Some examples are: a
background color, subject material, colors, a topic,
a process, etc. This will take our mood, color
palette, filter, and content all into play together.
Examples of Instagramers with a well-developed
thread are as follows:
@thebannerie sells glittered banners. With a simple glance at
her Instagram feed you can pick out her base colors (pink,
white, and gold). Her feed is very bright, fun, and has a sense
of humor. Many of the photos are photographed on a white
background, so they look very consistent. Her strong threads
are color, product styling, and personality.
@younginthemountains makes and sells pottery and jewelry.
She uses nature (her designs are inspired by nature) and
color to keep her feed branded. You see a lot of black, white,
and green. Even though the third photo isn't of her product, it
fits (in color and theme) with her products.
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OTHER EDITING APPLICATIONS.
Other mobile applications recommended for editing
images for Instagram outside of its native in-app
editor include:
VSCOCam.
One of the most popular out-of-app third party
editors used by Instagramers. Hosts a wide variety
of filters and editing tools to really help create a
mood and manipulate photos to fit a thread.
PicStich.
Has a great set of editing tools that can be used
without making a collage. Simply pick the one-
photo frame, insert photo, and edit.
Squaready.
Adds white space needed to accommodate
Instagram layout with non-square sized photos.
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TOPICS.
Our students—in action. Our Instagram gives
potential students a glimpse into the every day of
our student life and opportunities available to them.
Let’s show them something cool and inspire them
to say “that could be me”.
Events and activities. Use as a tool for visual
coverage of events and acknowledgement of
attractive college activities. Be timely; post photos
within 24-48 hours during or after event time. Do
not use to advertise upcoming events (reserve this
information for Twitter and Facebook) unless they
are of widespread college/university significance.
Campus landmarks. With the highly visual nature
of Instagram, we can consider our feed to be a
mini virtual tour of our beautiful campus. Show off
any one of our new, sleek building constructions or
upgrades, or highlight an old-time favorite like Bart
or the moat. It’s an easy way to add color and
interest to our feed.
Quotes. Let’s reserve science joke Sunday for
Twitter and FB, and introduce a new more
inspirational segment for Instagram. A popular
content type for Instagram is a short motivating
quote overlaying a photo. Refrain from overusing
this content type, most effective when well placed.
Throwbacks. A fantastic way to showcase
college/university history, throwback Thursday is
one of the few ‘everlasting’ hashtag trends that has
maintained popularity and attention on the
platform. Potential students want tradition and
heritage as part of their college experience – show
them fun and inspiring flashbacks that will
encourage them to join us in building our legacy.
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Breaking news. College news of widespread
significance or visual interest can be posted with
proper accompanying imagery to make important
announcements. Most news should be shared via
Twitter or FB. This content type should be used
only for unique instances, and focus on showing
advancements, improvements, and innovations
that are truly attractive to future students.
Reposts. User-generated content is king. Reward
followers and fans who are posting about our
college from their feeds by featuring them on our
own feed. Not only will it add authenticity by
providing peer created content, but will also
encourage more sharing by our fans in the future.
Screenshot their image, and post it from our profile
with their @username and/or original caption.
Videos. While primarily viewed as a static image
sharing social site, Instagram also has the capacity
to share 15-second video clips. Any video clips
considered for Instagram should be high quality,
creative, and attention grabbing, and reserved for
special occasions.
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BALANCE.
Finding the right balance of content types posted
to Instagram is crucial. We want our feed to be
diverse, and feature a well-planned mix of different
images and content that fit our brand identity. Try
to create a balance in our feed of outdoor natural
spaces vs indoor industrial spaces, planned
portraits vs candid shots, large groups of people vs
individuals, etc.
The pie graph suggests the proportions of content
types posted to our Instagram feed.
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TEXT.
Captions, hashtags, and overlays (oh my!)
Voice. Our brand voice should be inviting, upbeat,
and relatable. We want to use language that is
receptive to high school students, while maintaining
professionalism as a higher education institution.
Text on Instagram should be thought of as a
support element; the images should hold primary
attention, with the provided text adding a second
layer of thought-provoking information or clever
commentary.
Captions. Should be direct and to the point – if you
think it’s too long, it probably is, so try to stay
under 140 characters at max. Use emojis wisely,
but never excessively. And when in doubt, go for
the pun – well played humor is usually well liked on
Instagram.
Hashtags. Use strategically but in limited
quantities. Don’t exceed four or it begins to look
like a desperate attempt to attract followers. Think
carefully about the people who would be interested
in the topics/themes displayed in your image, and
hashtag appropriately to reach them.
Overlays. At times, you may want to include text
over an image. When doing so, stick to using
brand approved fonts: Arial Bold and Garamond.
Arial Bold should be used for “big type moments”
like titles, and typically is preferred in all uppercase.
Garamond is reserved as a complementary font for
subtitles or body text.
Keep overlays short and sweet. More detailed info
should be reserved for the caption.
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THANKS FOR READING!
Hopefully this guide has provided you with
comprehensive instruction and a holistic view of
our branding identity as a college for Instagram.
Any questions should be directed to the CoSM
web team for clarification and further social
branding decisions.
Have fun with it, and happy Instagramming!
Rachel Kessie
College of Science & Mathematics
Digital Media Coordinator
kessie.3@wright.edu
