Author: rachel mwombela

Once the Law School established its Instagram page and a respectable following, I decided to test the waters with our first big campaign — a student takeover week. My supervisor had talked about how other schools were following students around with cameras and recording “day in the life” content and expressed interest in us doing the same. At the time, social media was a secondary part of my job (I was just the office clerk) so I didn’t have the bandwidth to spend a whole day recording someone and then another whole day editing and producing the video. Putting the camera in the hands of our (very, very carefully selected) students created a much more authentic feel and gave the student community a sense ownership of the account. When I started the account, I wanted it to be a genuine reflection of student life and their experience, so it only made sense to let them take the wheel every once in a while.

Logistically, hosting a takeover isn’t that difficult, but it does require advance planning. Here’s a quick outline to help you get started.

1. Pick your takeover participants or announce that you’re looking for participants. I picked participants the first few years. This past spring, I didn’t have time to pick anyone (re: last month of wedding planning) so I posted in the IG Story asking for participants. I received so many responses that I actually extended the takeover week to two weeks.
2. Let the participants pick the day they want to takeover. They will understandably want to pick a busier day on their calendar to show off for The ‘Gram.
3. Send participants the takeover rules. SEND RULES. Don’t skip out on this step. You don’t want to have to deal with the “well, you didn’t tell me I couldn’t post that” conversation after something inappropriate has been posted to your institutional account >.<
4. Let your followers know what’s happening. Remember to post that the takeover is happening so that they know to look out for it. I would post on Friday night to let our followers know that the takeover was going to start on Monday. Then, on Sunday night, I’d post a photo of the first participant so they knew who they were “following” that day. I’d repeat this process throughout the week with each participant’s photo.
5. Monitor, monitor, monitor. Keep a vigilant eye on what your participants are posting to mitigate any inappropriate posts. At the end of my rules sheet, I always let the participants know that I can (and will) remove anything that doesn’t abide by the university’s standards.

Once it’s all over, take a deep breath! The takeover week will fly by. If you ended up getting some great content, be sure to save it to your Highlights. In the past couple of years of running our takeover through IG Stories, our students have really surpassed our expectations for content. One student started a Q&A with her classmates and other student participants followed suit. I ended up saving those clips as its own highlight separate from the takeover reel.

How do you feel about takeover campaigns? Let me know in the comments —