How to build an engaged community on Instagram with impactful content
Video links:
Academic research: https://www.instagram.com/p/BkSPEbpgRqp/
Presidents congrats: https://www.instagram.com/p/BmiSHJFAE2w/
5 things to pack for Uni: https://www.instagram.com/p/BnoSBcKngcC/
First day at Manchester in 3 words: https://www.instagram.com/p/BpRhBC1g8TB/
UoM students vs Manchester slang: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo_ZM-XgFdX/
1. How to build an engaged
Instagram community with
impactful content
@alistairbeech
Senior Social Media Coordinator
@officialuom
2. University Number of students (2016/17 - HESA)
University of Manchester 40,490
University College London 37,905
University of Birmingham 34,835
University of Oxford 24,650
University of Cambridge 19,995
3. How do you build an engaged
community through impactful content?
📷 8 million business profiles
📷 80% of Instagrammers
follow a business
📷 1 million monthly
advertisers
📷 72% of teenagers use
Instagram, every day
@officialuom
4. In summary…
Step 1:
Evaluated
own and
competitor
data
Step 2:
Formalised
content
themes
Step 3:
Placed
students at
the heart of
our content
📷 Understood our audiences better
📷 Prioritised Story and video content
📷 Increased engagements by 7% in 2018 compared with previous year
5. Why Instagram?
📷 Almost 1 billion monthly active users
📷 23% more engagement compared with Facebook
📷 4% average engagement rate for brands (Facebook – 0.1%)
7. What the data told us
📷 Number one University social channel to reach
Manchester students (49% of followers aged 24 or under)
📷 50% of followers outside of UK (international prospects
and alumni)
📷 Over 30,000 engagements per month (likes, comments,
shares)
📷 Stories gained more views and engagement than news
feed posts
@officialuom
8. Step 2: Content themes
Student life Academic
research
Nostalgia
Brand
campaigns
or events
14. What we’ve learned
📷 Capture attention in the first few seconds (Story or
newsfeed)
📷 Don’t duplicate or over post
📷 Make sure takeovers have objectives – a dos and
don'ts guide is essential!
📷 Listen to your audience and find out where they are
(IGTV, newsfeed, Stories)
@officialuom
I’m Alistair Beech from UoM. This session is on Instagram, and focuses on our journey at the University to build an engagement community, and how content strategy has been at the heart of our success.
It will last for around 20 minutes with time for questions at the end. All of the slides will be available at the end of conference.
11.00 How To Build An Engaged Community On Instagram With Impactful Content Learn how The University of Manchester built a highly engaged community of students, staff and international prospects through their @OfficialUoM Instagram channel.
Pictures, captions, tags, stories…what is getting the best engagement on Instagram per audience type and what trends should you be aware of?
Working with influencers – how to identify key influencers in your sector and collaborate through takeovers and endorsements.
Is Instagram king? Gauging the popularity of Instagram and its longevity for audiences, particularly young demographics, to plan your long-term platform strategy.
We have one of the largest student communities in the UK with more than 1,000 degree programmes –and more than 10,000 international students (one of the largest international intakes of any UK university) studying at the University.
Do we have any alumni in the audience?
Understood our audiences better – we found that whilst students engage with campus photos in a news feed, it’s usually passive engagement such as a like. When we posted video and Story content, especially content which featured fellow students, we saw more active engagements such as comments and shares.
Almost 1 Billion monthly active users
Facebook (2.27 billion)
Twitter (336 million)
Instagram content gets 23% more engagement than Facebook content
Brands receive on average 4% engagement from their audience (Facebook – 0.1%)
The best thing about SM platforms is the data you’re able to find which can help you understand who your audiences are and how successful your content is.
Four content themes – research, student life, alumni and brand
UGC overarching content type (over 84,000 posts tagged at main campus location)
A huge benefit for University’s is that we have fixed locations, such as campus areas or buildings. Over 84,000 posts have been tagged at our main campus location on Oxford Road, brining us closer to our audience access to some amazing content.
We utilise this content by contacting content owners and asking for permission to repost. Around 70% of our content is user generated, though we’re working to bring that down to a more even split.
In the past 12 months we’ve concentrated on producing more Story content, in addition to news feed content. Why?
There are 400 million daily active users of Instagram Stories, overtaking Snapchat in less than 12 months.
Better data from Instagram and Snapchat – the students we speak to say Snapchat is too young for them now.
80% of all daily active Instagram users are watching Stories just as often as they’re checking their feed.
And who uses Facebook Stories?
Take 100% of screen
Intent-driven – followers have to choose to view them
Great way of gathering feedback and encouraging engagement
Quick to produce, great way to show behind the scenes content
Crowd-source content through adding story content mentions
Allow us a platform to offer staff and students to create content – this example if from the Manchester 10K, where over 3,000 students, staff and alumni ran in a University ‘purple wave’
Naomi is a 3rd year Politics student and has represented Team GB at the European Championships in Berlin this summer. She is the UK’s top ranked triple jumper. She’s worked with us on a number of campaigns.
If your first story frame does not immediately capture attention audience will quickly exit
6-10 story items is the ‘sweet spot’
Team takeovers can work, but should have clear objectives and key messages
Takeover guidance is essential!
We’ve found that our target audience isn’t interested in IGTV, as they’re already using the news feed and Stories (STATS)
Showcase Manchester stars – students and staff making real-world impact
Collaborate with local, national and international partners
IGTV?
