Along with the best academics in the state, UF can boast a new top ranking as of Tuesday.
Florida’s flagship university is the most Instagrammed college in the state, according to a report by All Homes Connection, an AT&T affiliate. They found the most used hashtag relating to qualifying universities, and compiled data to pinpoint the college with the most uses of their hashtag. #UF was used for the Gator Nation.
While the social media team did not have this as a goal, their efforts to maintain high outreach and audience engagement helped make this possible, said Matt Duffy, an intern with UF social media.
“Instagram is a huge platform right now, so of course we’re going to take advantage of it,” Duffy said.
Duffy, who has been an intern for almost two years, started his experience creating Instagram stories for the @UFlorida account. He has also helped to brainstorm ideas for Giphy, a platform that makes animated loop stickers used on Instagram stories.
“It’s an easy school to show off,” he said.
The social media team hopes to continue reaching similar milestones on another platform it has recently joined, TikTok. Their goal is to reach a million hearts, Duffy said. Numbers like this reflect the team’s outreach and engagement with both campaigns and simple posts.
UF’s team is able to engage with current, former and prospective students through their social media platforms, said Ryan Morejon, UF’s social media specialist. While the team does not use #UF very much in their posts, they recognize that the audience it connects with likely does.
“We’re the flagship university of the state, so it’s cool that we’re the top as far as the hashtag goes,” Morejon said.
The team strives to share meaningful stories to highlight what is important to students and amplify their voices.
“We definitely believe a lot in sharing the good that others do, more than us creating the content, because we have such a giant community and audience,” Morejon said.
UF social media content aligns with the goals of President Kent Fuchs and Vice President Nancy Paton to achieve top 5 public school status by using social media as the powerful communication tool that it is, Morejon said.
“Our biggest thing is to humanize the brand,” Morejon said. “With higher education and schools, it’s not like Coca Cola, we’re not selling a product –– this is an experience. It’s a meaningful phase in someone’s life, so you want to have people connect with the brand in that way.”
UF (@uflorida) was designated as the most Instagrammed school in the state, as per data with #UF.
