Trending to the Top: How BU’s Social Media Soared in Q3 FY24
By Dave McDonald, Director of Social Media
For those working in higher education and operating within a fiscal year that commences on July 1st, it’s hard to believe that Q3 has already passed. In just a few weeks, we’ll be launching yearly commencement campaigns, and before we know it, it will be time for our annual social media reports. But for now, let’s focus on reflecting on Q3. Here’s a recap of the content that performed well on Boston University’s flagship pages, along with some insights you can consider during your next social planning meetings. Let’s get into it.
Q3 by the numbers:
Whoa! That’s a lot of green. When looking at our FY24 Q3 social stats in comparison to Q3 FY23, we’re up across the board when it comes to our key metrics. This included a +22.60% increase in engagements, a +1.94% increase in followers, a +39.15% increase in shares, +40.35% in comments, a +34.39% increase in published posts, and finally a +10.15% increase in reach.
Let’s give our social team a round of applause for all their hard work. It’s time for a little victory dance! Woohoo! 🎉
Now that we’ve celebrated our hard work with a little jig, let’s dive deeper and discover what drove our Q3 success.
Top Content:
Q3 is generally always a good quarter for BU because it starts a new semester and includes many important events for the University. However, let me summarize the content that rose to the top during this time and some insights we learned.
Top performer: “Person on the Street” videos:
Beginning in FY24, we started leaning heavily into “Person on the Street” short-form videos as a way to showcase the BU community in a fun but personal way. Using our talented team of interns as “hosts,” we have them venture through campus to ask our students questions on a specific topic or moment in time that’s trending. Since we’ve been posting these videos, they have continued to be top performers as viewers are both eager to add their two cents to the comments section and excited to see their friends featured. In Q3, the following videos really stood out.
Video #1: Call someone and tell them you love them for Valentine’s Day:
Results: Our person on the street video for Valentine’s Day, asking students to call someone and tell them they love them, was our top performer this quarter with over 112.3K engagements, which included 1.3M views and 1,968 shares across Instagram and TikTok. The video did well because it pulled on the heartstrings and reminded our followers to appreciate those special people in their lives. Check out the video below and see for yourself
Video #2: Can you give us a tour of your dorm?
Results: In Q3, we took a page from popular realtor Instagram and TikTok creators that will “walk up to strangers” in cities and have them tour their apartments to showcase what it’s like to live in a specific city’s neighborhood. We used this concept for a dorm tour. — While these videos are clearly staged, the success of this video reinforces the idea that personable, raw “phone-in-had” style videos continue to rise to the top. Across Instagram and TikTok, this video earned 15.06K engagements, including 362K video views and 2.51K shares.
Top performer: TikTok Trends:
This one isn’t a surprise. Incorporating TikTok trends into your brand continues to be an effective way to amplify your messaging and have a little fun while you’re at it. While not all trends may be a fit for your organization, using the trending sound in the video below was a hit for us this past quarter
Results: Using the “This is not a banger” trending sound at the time, we could playfully poke fun at our rival schools and give our TikTok channel a significant boost in engagement. The video was a success, and in total, it received 19.43K engagements, including 183.75K views and 292 shares.
Top performer: BU’s President-Elect, Dr. Melissa Gilliam, was named one of USA Today’s Women of the Year!
In the Fall of 2023, BU announced that Dr. Melissa L. Gilliam, a renowned educator, scholar, research scientist, and physician, will be Boston University’s 11th president starting July 1, 2024. This past March, USA Today honored Dr. Gilliam as one of their Women of the Year. The project celebrated local and national heroines who make a positive impact in their communities. — Naturally, we jumped on this opportunity to share the good news.
Results: Since the original announcement of our president-elect was positively received in the fall, we saw this as an excellent opportunity to reignite the excitement about Dr. Gilliam joining the University in July. In total, our posts across our social channels received 5.5K engagements.
Top performer: BU Police’s Comfort Dog Naming Campaign
Did somebody say puppies? In Q3, BU’s Police department announced the exciting news that they’ll be getting a comfort dog. To spread the word about the University’s new furry friend, we teamed up to launch a campaign to help name their adorable new golden retriever. The campaign involved three parts:
- A post across our social channels announcing the new puppy, its role on campus, and where to submit name suggestions
- An Instagram story bracket, where our followers could vote for names via Instagram’s polling feature each hour until there was a winning name
- The puppy’s name and new Instagram account were announced using the co-posting feature with Boston University’s flagship account. If you haven’t yet, go say hi to the adorable Bean on her Instagram @Bean_BUPD.
Results: To literally no one’s surprise, the campaign was a big hit and served as an excellent example of partnering with another campus unit. In total, the campaign earned 25.7k engagements, including 1.74K shares and over 800 comments. We also received over 500 name suggestions for the adorable puppy.
Top performer: BU Filmed Cinematically
Campus beauty shots and videos are always popular. However, we wanted to put a unique spin on this idea. So, we enlisted one of the students from our Terrier Creator Program to film the campus in a more cinematic way. The creator used an indie filter and calming music to give our campus a nostalgic feel. The video was a success, with many of our followers expressing appreciation for the ✨aesthetic✨. Check out the video below.
Results: The video earned us 45.29K views and 3.41K engagements, including 133 shares, 61 comments, and 3.22K likes and reactions.
And there you have it, folks. Overall, it was a great quarter, and here’s to a successful Q4. Thank you for reading, and be sure to leave any questions you have in the comments.
Until next time! 👋
