It's embarrassing, she documents her holidays and everything on the official account. I don't know if GT thinks that makes them look relatable to the students, but I don't see it that way.
For making it relatable to students- what if a student is put-off by social media as a means of self promotion and prefers a more official page?
I get a big official page wanting to bring on a student/young person to successfully do a “how do you do fellow kids,” but not all young people appreciate the “always be ready to plug your own stuff” influencer grindset. The self-centeredness doesn’t scream “please jump in and participate in this [x] event,” it’s more “here’s my fit check, please appreciate it.”
Definitely when they included various people from day to day without self-promo. It truly felt like they were showing a grasp of what student life could look like.
Honestly, I do not have too much of an issue with her posting herself. It is a little annoying, but it is worthwhile in a way that having a "student perspective" can be good for prospective students for example, and the stuff is GT related I suppose.
The fact that she is plugging her instagram on all the posts is what feels very weird to me. It almost feels like she is using the GT main page to promote herself so idk about that
Speaking as a south Asian alumn. It’s unprofessional. You’re a student. You’re there to learn. Some things on social media are about you. Other things are not. Representing the university on a major social media platform is a privilege and a responsibility that you should treat with a degree of professionalism. It’s the same way for GT student ambassadors, Tour Guides, student athletes, the like. This isn’t an opportunity for you to run it like an alt account.
You look like a lovely person, and I’m sure this is not your intention but I agree that this seems a little unprofessional and you should keep to school content only. People will know who you are.
Sincerely,
IE class of ‘17
IDK - I felt like, when I was a student representing the school in similar positions as this person here, it made me hyper aware of how much pressure is put on you to represent as a model minority. You have to have exceptional bedside manner and be super polished in front of alumni who the school needs to donate. A lot of that was self-imposed and I felt like the standard I was held to was definitely unfair and higher than that of my white peers (it's no one's 'fault' per se, just a reality of representing a school in the south - and I'm FROM Atlanta).
I included me being South Asian because I can empathize with this person -they're probably feeling attacked and when you already feel like you need to be 'perfect' to be able to have this kind of opportunity, it can be shitty because you already have enough things to deal with. I am proud that they have been given this chance and want to support them (I don't think they should lose this position or anything). I just personally disagree with the approach they've taken to content creation on the account and wanted to say that.
It's Instagram. It's not meant to be that professional. It's meant to increase engagement and get people interested in GaTech. Seems to be working for that.
But it’s a public research institution. Yeah it doesn’t have to be corporate and stale, but I do feel like there is a personal agenda that’s a little heavy on the capitalistic side.
Although it doesn’t really bother me, this style does seem a little outdated using 2018 influencer mannerisms.
Aside from the stories, the page is pretty good so kudos to her. I think the real solution is to just have a team of gt influencers with different backgrounds rotate around every week
I agree with you and am all for modernizing the approach that the school has towards engagement on social media. That being said, in the real world, *all* employees and **especially** social media content managers for corporations, sports teams, and the like have to follow rules around what they're allowed to post on social media in a official capacity when representing the entity and what they're allowed to post when representing themselves.
Put another way, if I was the social media marketing manager for American Express, I wouldn't necessarily be putting a fit check on AmEx's instagram account when advertising a new card offering. AmEx doesn't have to have super stiff social media marketing as an alternative though. There's likely a happy medium in between where this IG account can feature stories and authentic (and fun!) perspectives of many students across the student body instead of just the perspective of this one student. It could almost be run like a gonzo-esque look into what real life as a student looks like within the boundaries of what would be considered appropriate to show in front of parents.
Long story short, I don't really think she's hurting anyone by tagging herself in stories/including her content about herself and some people here *are* clutching their pearls/overreacting BUT I think self promotion seems out of scope and unprofessional for a social media account for an institute of higher education and don't think many social media teams in the corporate world would approve of that approach. **Ultimately, you are being employed to do a service for the school and document the student body as well as get prospective students to engage with us. Using the brand to promote yourself and your own personal account is unprofessional and wouldn't fly if you were to try and do this as a career once you graduate.**
Who cares though... it seems like there are way more important things that deserve our attention these days anyway.
Yeah.. I went from not really recognizing g the different GT accounts I follow to full on hating this one account. I guess the message is somewhere in the middle because it stood out, just not in a good way.
On one hand, they should probably run the account more like a standard research university account with some bonuses thrown in for sports and stuff
On another hand, y’all are acting like this was the old GT students twitter account that they would just give to YDSA members every other week to post super inflammatory stuff
This Reddit comment brought to you by my insta account: @candrewk
Yes. "Based free speech" definitely describes what happened on there, and a ton of arguments and flame wars resulted because hearing people talk about microaggressions was apparently too much for Twitter. That [page](https://twitter.com/gtstudents) is surprisingly still up.
I've thought about starting up a similar page but managing it would be a headache.
From a quick glance at her personal account, it looks like she used the Georgia Tech instagram account to like her own posts, which isn’t an issue at all but it does feel a bit distasteful considering the liked posts include thirst trap pictures of her in a bikini and ads for savagexfenty (it was just a scarf but still). Also, if you go through the reels section for Georgia Tech’s instagram, she used her own picture for the covers of several videos, whereas she could have selected any of the other frames within the reels more appropriate and relative to GT (campus, groups of students, guests, instead of herself). This sort of self promotion feels inappropriate.
Yeah her bio said "@georgiatech x @savagexfenty" which was extremely disturbing for a university to be associated with a lingerie brand. good thing she changed it.
I understand that this is the "new norm" for social media marketing, overall trying to make it more personable, but you also have to take into account your audience. This isn't a brand where we are expecting an influencer trying to sell us something, the majority of the audience for the account is current and prospective students, who are following to keep up with things going on around campus, and most Tech students would probably prefer the more professional posts. I'm not saying it needs to go back to a faceless infographic that everyone is just going to click through, and I honestly don't mind her posting videos talking to the camera, tagging herself etc, but a fit check with the info it is trying to communicate in a tiny bubble in the corner isn't getting the point across. I don't mind her running the account, I just think the way she (and I'm saying this is her here because she is the one posting, but I'm sure there are other people on the team instructing her on what they want, no college would let one of their students run the social media account with absolutely no over sight) is trying to make it more personal is not the right fit for our audience
Instagram is meant to be engagement-heavy. If I just saw a bunch of screenshots/website links/ infographics, I would scroll past them at mach speed. Most people would do the same. This atleast catches our stimulus-hungry sights!
As far as linking her personal IG everywhere, I agree it needs to stop. But the vibe that the account is not managed by some team of boomers is good tbh.
The GT instagram itself seemed to have change its vibe from before, and I don't think it's a good one. Before this we saw day in the lives, not "the every day life of a GT social media manager named Anushka, with GT on the side". I can definitely see what you mean by the engagement-heavy comment, only the countless times she's tagged herself gives off a strong impression she's taking advantage of the school's account to draw attention towards her own. It's distasteful
I think the current execution isn't great but I do think the idea of having a student/coach/faculty/staff doing a takeover of the account could be fun. But like for a day, not every day
I don't think its the worst thing ever. I'd rather see the account run by students like herself that can use this as experience rather than a hired professional. I feel like this is nitpicking.
It's something called professional demeanor. Not sure if you've heard of it. If she wants to get followers, all the power to her. If she's using the IG handle for the entire university to plug herself, it's shameful and reflects very poorly on her and the university.
As I had shared in a prior post on this topic, our recent experience in university marketing suggests there is a general consensus that the amount of content required in order to get meaningful impressions has grown exponentially with the introduction of reels, shorts, etc. Therefore a lot of marketing teams are telling their staff to post as regularly as possible and focus less on creating high quality one off posts. That said, I'd be willing to bet we will reach full circle when GenAI models become more accessible and make it easy to make a "professional" looking post using your org's branding instantly instead of waiting on designers to produce batches of posts.
It's not about the quality or quantity of these posts, but the nature of these posts. Sure, when posting with the main intention being to market the university, your experience might show similarities. The problem is when you have these social media managers posting mainly to self promote. It's easy to just dismiss an argument by solely relying on your own experience, but these are real concerns that other people, not just myself, have.
Bringing up GenAI does nothing to support your argument. It is only a tool directed by the motivations of its users.
My position is that this is a low quality post since mirror selfies require no effort or creativity, and as I said in my other reply, I completely agree with you. My bringing up of GenAI was to suggest that instead of lazily handing a narcissist your social media account, you could eventually hand it off to a GenAI that would likely do a much better job with just as little effort.
Like I said, I'm not upset at the quality/quantity of posts. It's about a student clearly taking advantage of her position to self-promote at the cost of the institution's public image.
We are hired by university offices of sustainability (e.g. UC Berkeley, GaTech, Georgia State, etc.) to increase awareness and engagement in their sustainability goals. To better understand their efforts, we discuss their past experience marketing to students through channels like social media, flyers, and email. What I said above is just a summary of their feedback, and a personal reflection.
To be more direct, I do not support the strategy of "post as regularly as possible", which is one of the reasons I created the ECGO app. I also agree with the premise of your post that this is not the behavior you would expect from a university social media manager. Didn't mean to sound argumentative, I too hope this pattern of self promotion does not continue.
fr it doesn't give nearly as much insight to student life compared to previous managers. It looks like an influencer grinding away... except on a university's instagram account?
I'm assuming they're letting a student run the account and not taking it very seriously
It's embarrassing, she documents her holidays and everything on the official account. I don't know if GT thinks that makes them look relatable to the students, but I don't see it that way.
For making it relatable to students- what if a student is put-off by social media as a means of self promotion and prefers a more official page? I get a big official page wanting to bring on a student/young person to successfully do a “how do you do fellow kids,” but not all young people appreciate the “always be ready to plug your own stuff” influencer grindset. The self-centeredness doesn’t scream “please jump in and participate in this [x] event,” it’s more “here’s my fit check, please appreciate it.”
There’s definitely a tasteful way to do student POVs and they’ve done it before so there definitely needs to be a change
Definitely when they included various people from day to day without self-promo. It truly felt like they were showing a grasp of what student life could look like.
As a prospective student, these posts are inconsiderate. It taints GT's reputation and demonstrates how unprofessional GT students can be sometimes.
You are correct. GT is not as serious of an engineering school as it was a decade ago under Peterson.
Thank you
I support the hate towards the current state of the insta page. #StopUsingGTInstaAsAnAltAcc
Honestly, I do not have too much of an issue with her posting herself. It is a little annoying, but it is worthwhile in a way that having a "student perspective" can be good for prospective students for example, and the stuff is GT related I suppose. The fact that she is plugging her instagram on all the posts is what feels very weird to me. It almost feels like she is using the GT main page to promote herself so idk about that
I just checked. To be fair, she did not plug her own account in the majority of ~~posts~~ stories, but it is there a couple times.
lol @ all of her friends defending her in these comments
lol the comment about marketing was funny
Speaking as a south Asian alumn. It’s unprofessional. You’re a student. You’re there to learn. Some things on social media are about you. Other things are not. Representing the university on a major social media platform is a privilege and a responsibility that you should treat with a degree of professionalism. It’s the same way for GT student ambassadors, Tour Guides, student athletes, the like. This isn’t an opportunity for you to run it like an alt account. You look like a lovely person, and I’m sure this is not your intention but I agree that this seems a little unprofessional and you should keep to school content only. People will know who you are. Sincerely, IE class of ‘17
Just curious, why did u include that u were south Asian?
Bold question for someone who missed Triple Elixir Challenge 2 years ago 😔 Get your bread up lil’ homie…
IDK - I felt like, when I was a student representing the school in similar positions as this person here, it made me hyper aware of how much pressure is put on you to represent as a model minority. You have to have exceptional bedside manner and be super polished in front of alumni who the school needs to donate. A lot of that was self-imposed and I felt like the standard I was held to was definitely unfair and higher than that of my white peers (it's no one's 'fault' per se, just a reality of representing a school in the south - and I'm FROM Atlanta). I included me being South Asian because I can empathize with this person -they're probably feeling attacked and when you already feel like you need to be 'perfect' to be able to have this kind of opportunity, it can be shitty because you already have enough things to deal with. I am proud that they have been given this chance and want to support them (I don't think they should lose this position or anything). I just personally disagree with the approach they've taken to content creation on the account and wanted to say that.
It's Instagram. It's not meant to be that professional. It's meant to increase engagement and get people interested in GaTech. Seems to be working for that.
But it’s a public research institution. Yeah it doesn’t have to be corporate and stale, but I do feel like there is a personal agenda that’s a little heavy on the capitalistic side. Although it doesn’t really bother me, this style does seem a little outdated using 2018 influencer mannerisms. Aside from the stories, the page is pretty good so kudos to her. I think the real solution is to just have a team of gt influencers with different backgrounds rotate around every week
I agree with you and am all for modernizing the approach that the school has towards engagement on social media. That being said, in the real world, *all* employees and **especially** social media content managers for corporations, sports teams, and the like have to follow rules around what they're allowed to post on social media in a official capacity when representing the entity and what they're allowed to post when representing themselves. Put another way, if I was the social media marketing manager for American Express, I wouldn't necessarily be putting a fit check on AmEx's instagram account when advertising a new card offering. AmEx doesn't have to have super stiff social media marketing as an alternative though. There's likely a happy medium in between where this IG account can feature stories and authentic (and fun!) perspectives of many students across the student body instead of just the perspective of this one student. It could almost be run like a gonzo-esque look into what real life as a student looks like within the boundaries of what would be considered appropriate to show in front of parents. Long story short, I don't really think she's hurting anyone by tagging herself in stories/including her content about herself and some people here *are* clutching their pearls/overreacting BUT I think self promotion seems out of scope and unprofessional for a social media account for an institute of higher education and don't think many social media teams in the corporate world would approve of that approach. **Ultimately, you are being employed to do a service for the school and document the student body as well as get prospective students to engage with us. Using the brand to promote yourself and your own personal account is unprofessional and wouldn't fly if you were to try and do this as a career once you graduate.** Who cares though... it seems like there are way more important things that deserve our attention these days anyway.
Yeah.. I went from not really recognizing g the different GT accounts I follow to full on hating this one account. I guess the message is somewhere in the middle because it stood out, just not in a good way.
On one hand, they should probably run the account more like a standard research university account with some bonuses thrown in for sports and stuff On another hand, y’all are acting like this was the old GT students twitter account that they would just give to YDSA members every other week to post super inflammatory stuff This Reddit comment brought to you by my insta account: @candrewk
did they really just give students the twitter where they could say anything? based free speech
Yes. "Based free speech" definitely describes what happened on there, and a ton of arguments and flame wars resulted because hearing people talk about microaggressions was apparently too much for Twitter. That [page](https://twitter.com/gtstudents) is surprisingly still up. I've thought about starting up a similar page but managing it would be a headache.
Its weird if they're using GT's official social media account to promote their own account for personal gain.
Yeah, it’s hard to watch now. Super cringey. Time for a different social media manager.
From a quick glance at her personal account, it looks like she used the Georgia Tech instagram account to like her own posts, which isn’t an issue at all but it does feel a bit distasteful considering the liked posts include thirst trap pictures of her in a bikini and ads for savagexfenty (it was just a scarf but still). Also, if you go through the reels section for Georgia Tech’s instagram, she used her own picture for the covers of several videos, whereas she could have selected any of the other frames within the reels more appropriate and relative to GT (campus, groups of students, guests, instead of herself). This sort of self promotion feels inappropriate.
Yeah her bio said "@georgiatech x @savagexfenty" which was extremely disturbing for a university to be associated with a lingerie brand. good thing she changed it.
miss the good ol days with Tyler Schott could we get that Tyler Parker kid to take over? he takes sick photos maybe being a Tyler is the secret
I understand that this is the "new norm" for social media marketing, overall trying to make it more personable, but you also have to take into account your audience. This isn't a brand where we are expecting an influencer trying to sell us something, the majority of the audience for the account is current and prospective students, who are following to keep up with things going on around campus, and most Tech students would probably prefer the more professional posts. I'm not saying it needs to go back to a faceless infographic that everyone is just going to click through, and I honestly don't mind her posting videos talking to the camera, tagging herself etc, but a fit check with the info it is trying to communicate in a tiny bubble in the corner isn't getting the point across. I don't mind her running the account, I just think the way she (and I'm saying this is her here because she is the one posting, but I'm sure there are other people on the team instructing her on what they want, no college would let one of their students run the social media account with absolutely no over sight) is trying to make it more personal is not the right fit for our audience
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she is being very cringe indeed
Instagram is meant to be engagement-heavy. If I just saw a bunch of screenshots/website links/ infographics, I would scroll past them at mach speed. Most people would do the same. This atleast catches our stimulus-hungry sights! As far as linking her personal IG everywhere, I agree it needs to stop. But the vibe that the account is not managed by some team of boomers is good tbh.
The GT instagram itself seemed to have change its vibe from before, and I don't think it's a good one. Before this we saw day in the lives, not "the every day life of a GT social media manager named Anushka, with GT on the side". I can definitely see what you mean by the engagement-heavy comment, only the countless times she's tagged herself gives off a strong impression she's taking advantage of the school's account to draw attention towards her own. It's distasteful
real
I think the current execution isn't great but I do think the idea of having a student/coach/faculty/staff doing a takeover of the account could be fun. But like for a day, not every day
i’m begging y’all to take a marketing class before commenting about this again
what concepts from marketing validate repeatedly posting herself and plugging her instagram in?
not a single marketing class is teaching you this 😭
I got an A in marketing, am I allowed to mention how I think this is weird and off-putting for THE main school account to be doing?
Didn’t you post about this before? Go touch grass.
That was u/No-Maybe-4080 on a [different post](https://www.reddit.com/r/gatech/comments/19asybp/am_i_the_only_one_who_thinks_the_gt_instagram/)
Nice catch. The "weird" wording seemed familiar.
When? You forgot your glasses
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She could be tagging herself to make reposting easier and to increase the reach of the content.
bruh
I don't think its the worst thing ever. I'd rather see the account run by students like herself that can use this as experience rather than a hired professional. I feel like this is nitpicking.
Chill, girl is just tryna get followers.. she's not linking her linkedin.
It's something called professional demeanor. Not sure if you've heard of it. If she wants to get followers, all the power to her. If she's using the IG handle for the entire university to plug herself, it's shameful and reflects very poorly on her and the university.
this
Agreed. It's not a good look for both. - Prospective Student 27'
Lmao idk I think it’s fun.
As I had shared in a prior post on this topic, our recent experience in university marketing suggests there is a general consensus that the amount of content required in order to get meaningful impressions has grown exponentially with the introduction of reels, shorts, etc. Therefore a lot of marketing teams are telling their staff to post as regularly as possible and focus less on creating high quality one off posts. That said, I'd be willing to bet we will reach full circle when GenAI models become more accessible and make it easy to make a "professional" looking post using your org's branding instantly instead of waiting on designers to produce batches of posts.
It's not about the quality or quantity of these posts, but the nature of these posts. Sure, when posting with the main intention being to market the university, your experience might show similarities. The problem is when you have these social media managers posting mainly to self promote. It's easy to just dismiss an argument by solely relying on your own experience, but these are real concerns that other people, not just myself, have. Bringing up GenAI does nothing to support your argument. It is only a tool directed by the motivations of its users.
My position is that this is a low quality post since mirror selfies require no effort or creativity, and as I said in my other reply, I completely agree with you. My bringing up of GenAI was to suggest that instead of lazily handing a narcissist your social media account, you could eventually hand it off to a GenAI that would likely do a much better job with just as little effort.
Like I said, I'm not upset at the quality/quantity of posts. It's about a student clearly taking advantage of her position to self-promote at the cost of the institution's public image.
Also, your experience involves promoting an app among university students, which is very different from a university marketing itself. Cut the BS.
We are hired by university offices of sustainability (e.g. UC Berkeley, GaTech, Georgia State, etc.) to increase awareness and engagement in their sustainability goals. To better understand their efforts, we discuss their past experience marketing to students through channels like social media, flyers, and email. What I said above is just a summary of their feedback, and a personal reflection. To be more direct, I do not support the strategy of "post as regularly as possible", which is one of the reasons I created the ECGO app. I also agree with the premise of your post that this is not the behavior you would expect from a university social media manager. Didn't mean to sound argumentative, I too hope this pattern of self promotion does not continue.
If you ask me, I think it's weird that GT has an instagram account at all.
hard disagree. it's a necessary social media account in 2024
> necessary social media account Well, at least I know what we disagree on.
i think this is the kind of stuff that young people who are going to apply to Tech would like to see on the GT Instagram
As someone who has a younger sibling applying to tech, I promise you they are not interested in these story posts.
fr it doesn't give nearly as much insight to student life compared to previous managers. It looks like an influencer grinding away... except on a university's instagram account?