Most Influential Colleges on Instagram 2014

Instagram, in many ways, is the kid sister of the main-stay social networks. It is extremely popular with the teenage and young to mid-adult crowd and it is one of the newest, substantial social networks. In just four short years, the company… boasts over 150 million users around the world. The ease of use and instant gratification that comes from posting photos gives the platform a modern, youthful feel. Not to mention, the platform is used primarily on mobile devices, the fastest growing sector of the tech gadget market.

Universities with stand-out Instagram accounts include Stanford University, the University of Wisconsin, and University of Michigan. All of these institutions stand out by encouraging students to hashtag their personal Instagram photos with things like #Stanford, #UMsocial, or #UMInstagram in hopes that they will be picked up and posted by the official account of the school. This gives the accounts of these schools a truly personal feel, capturing students and alumni personal moments of achievement and appreciation of their schools.

Stanford University’s Instagram account offers a different point of view, adding pictures from Stanford’s archive as well as beautiful, artistic photography from the campus and its surroundings. This attracts followers of all kinds by engaging with artists and historians alike. Short-form videos can also be posted on Instagram accounts, usually no longer than 10 to 20 seconds. Savvy Universities like Boston College take advantage of this feature to give their followers a taste of the sights and sounds on a given day around campus.

Most of all, successful Instagram universities play with the platform and use themes and jokes to engage their followers. At Indiana University, their April Fool’s Day posts included a number of silly squirrel pictures, later in the spring, their famed red tulips dominated graduation week photos.