Category: Blog

I chose Instagram because this is one of the social media platforms that I use the most. With Snapchat, your story can only been seen up to 24 hours. It is the same with Instagram but you can make your InstaStory more interactive. You can add links to websites, link your own or someone else’s Instagram post, music and more. You can @ and use any hashtag to further the engagement of who’s following you or watching your story. Another reason I chose Instagram is because I have a lot of followers that go to Stevenson or are college students. Since my poem is about my COVID experience, many of my followers will be able to relate to it and want to look at other works on the Greenspring Review.

I posted a series of InstaStories as a “teaser” to my Instagram post. This will lead the viewers to my original post that promotes the Greenspring Review and my work. In my post, one of the pictures is the photograph that I attached to my poem. The next pictures are of my poem itself. In the Caption, I explain how COVID altered my way of life which directly relates to my poem. Then, I add on how many others from Stevenson, along with others from different colleges, are experiencing the same feelings and that we put them into art. I tell them to check out the Greenspring Review for more works from students like us. I added the hashtags #stayhome, #staysafe, #covid_19, and #greenspringreview to gain more traction to my post. I also tagged our school’s and the GreenSpring Review’s Instagram profile.

I was a little late in when I originally wanted to post. I wanted to post on my InstaStory and feed at 8 pm but I ended up doing it later for outside reason s other than schoolwork. I’ve noticed that I get the most engagement on my Instagram (story and posts) around 8 pm from my followers.

1. I chose to use Instagram as it is the social media platform I am most familiar with. Also, A majority of users are between the ages of 18 and 24 which is ideal for reaching the students among our audience. More specifically, I utilized the ‘Stories’ feature. With this I was able to insert a gauge sticker into the story which allows the viewer to give immediate feedback. Another reason stories works well is engagement, including with links, can be monitored and used to plan for future posts. In the second story, I used the swipe up feature which would take the user directly to The Greenspring Review to view more student submissions.

2. Instagram offers an array of options for uploading content. Text, color, overlays, and all aesthetic aspects can be manipulated very easily and does not require any extensive knowledge of the application. It is also informal for the most part so the use of gifs, emojis, punctuation, images, and videos are all at your discretion.

3. Upon scrolling through one’s feed, it is clear that this platform in particular focuses heavily on visuals. Because of this, it is best to use a picture or video of some sort that consist of more than text.

4. Users are typically more active in the afternoon and late into the evening. For a student publication, daily posts (not too many) would be ideal. Also, stories are only available for 24 hours so they should be used along with traditional posts. Though, from personal experience, I view stories more that posts, with the exception of the explore tab. Polls and stickers are also a nice option for engagement without requiring viewers to leave comments.

For posting and promoting the Greenspring Review, I recommend using Instagram. Most college-aged people and college organizations have Instagram accounts, so choosing this platform will make the content more accessible. Instagram is photo-based, so digital media and artwork would thrive on the platform. Poetry and other short written works can be screenshotted and uploaded as pictures. Another advantage of Instagram is that posts can have super long captions, as opposed to Twitter which has a 280 character limit. Instagram does have a ratio limit of posts  to maintain continuity and sleekness, so posts would be edited to be either square, a 4:5 rectangle, or a 1.91:1 rectangle. The only downside is for longer pieces of written work because it would have to be chopped up into multiple slides. Instagram has a limit to 10 slides per post, so problems would arise if the written work is longer than that.

For my post specifically, it can be sized to fit as a single slide on a post. Instagram has filters and in-app editing, but I wouldn’t utilize either. My post has text and images floating around it, so it could be converted into a picture to post. Since captions can be long, I would mention a small blurb from my thought process, a mini biography about myself, and a few sentences about the Greenspring Review. Unfortunately, the caption text cannot be manipulated, but emojis can be included. The Instagram account would be public, so hashtags will be used to increase the traffic to the account and posts.

In terms of running the account, we should post, at minimum every other day. Ideally, I would try to post every day Monday-Friday. From analyzing my personal account, most of my followers are active in the early afternoon, and late night around 9pm. Since this account is school-related, the best option is to post in the afternoon anytime from noon-4pm. The best way to increase engagement is to post consistently and include hashtags and locations so others can easily find it. We can ask other Stevenson accounts, including the English Department, Student Activities, and Stevenson’s main account,  to share our posts to increase our engagement.

I chose to use Instagram as my social media platform to advertise the GreenSpring Review.  I am most familiar with this platform, and I thought it would be effective in reaching other students.  I know most college students do not utilize FaceBook much, and SnapChat does not keep posts advertised for more than 24 hours.  This brought me to choose between Instagram and Twitter.  I chose Instagram, though, because I thought it was important to advertise the art that you would find in the GSR, and many college students are attracted by visually appealing posts.

Since I decided to do an actual Instagram post, I had to do a caption.  If I had done a post to my Instagram story, I could have done some text overlay, but I thought it was important to have an original post.  Other viewers could then choose to post this to their stories to which they could add overlays.  Also, font and image could be manipulated in stories, which I think increases interaction with the post.  There is a word limit for the caption, but it is relatively high, and I did not want to overwhelm an audience with an exorbitant amount of text.  In my opinion, a block of text on a social media post is a turn-off.  I chose not to use emojis in the caption because there is not an emoji that directly correlates with Stevenson or the GSR.  I did not want to add a bunch of emojis because it would make it seem rather childish to me.  Once again, though, the use of emojis can be used when interacting with the post.

Pictures, videos, GIFs, etc. are all great to use on Instagram!  I used a picture because it is what I had access to from my own submission.  I believe any other type of media would suffice perfectly to advertise the GSR.

From my own use of Instagram and my own research, I have come to notice that there is a “prime time” to post on Instagram.  I have found that this is between 5 and 8pm.  It is a time students are getting off of work and out of class, so it is the time they check their social medias.  To increase likes, views and comments, I used hashtags.  These help bring more attention to the posts not only to SU students but everyone else in the world as well!  I also tagged Stevenson’s main Instagram page as well as the GSR account I found and the SU English Department page.  These are all important accounts associated with the literary magazine.  Another way to get more views is by sharing the post to Instagram stories and sharing your own thoughts.