I have spent the last two weeks managing the Instagram account @ozhealthtech and have really enjoyed the process of doing this!
As someone who maintains a personal Instagram account, I found it really cool to use it now as more of a tool to get health tips and recommendations out there to the followers of this account. It was an interesting and entirely new take on something that I typically incorporate into my daily life as a more social manner
When I began using the Instagram on Thursday, November 16th the account had 144 followers. As I write this report right now, it has 165 followers. This means I gained a total of 21 followers during my time running the account.
One of the first things I did when I began the account takeover was that I followed a bunch of my favorite health bloggers, such as @rachelmansfeild, and @onecrazedfoodie. Both of these girls are very influential and intelligent people who put out AMAZING clean eating recipes and positive mindsets when it comes to food and nutrition. They also do reviews of lots of different health foods such as protein powders, almond milk, and allergen-free chocolate! A lot of their focus is on refined-sugar free, gluten-free, and often vegan desserts. I love their accounts!
Finally, I felt it was important for out account to follow the @oswegofit account that is run by the employees of the Cooper and Glimmerglass Fitness Centers on campus. The information shared by this account is important for everyone on campus to be familiar with, but ESPECIALLY if you are a member of the Wellness Department.
I decided early on that I wanted to tackle a few different topics with the posts I made. I had a unique opportunity than most other people because my account take-over was during Thanksgiving Break. So I of course geared some of my posts towards this topic as to capitalize on the impact I could make to my followers during this holiday season.
For example, pictured below is a post I made for Thanksgiving, outlining a few different tips to help prevent yourself from overeating.
To follow up with this post, few days after Thanksgiving I posted this photo from a story I found while scrolling through my Flipboard. Since I was trying to appeal to the places my followers may be with their Health journey during this time, I decided to give them informaiton about how to get their eating back on track following the big Turkey Day Holiday. This post included a link to the full story.
Some other topics I tried to tackle with my posts are things like encouraging more plant-based protein sources for their foods by featuring a picture of my salad for lunch.
I also tried raise awareness about the importance of washing your hands, especially during this Flu Season that is upon us!
Some of the unique tactics I employed for my posts that I felt would make my posts stand out to viewers is the usage of relevant and aesthetically pleasing emojis. This has been recommended by Instagram famous individuals because it not only catches peoples eyes as they scroll through their feed, but it also reinforces whatever emotion, mood, or subject you are attempting to get across.
Additionally, I used the app called Boomerang which is a short (2-3 second) video that plays on a loop instead of a still picture. I did not see any other posts on this account that used Boomerangs so I felt that it would be a fun, new and interesting way to change things up and keep people interested…and it definitely worked!
Check out my video below to hear more of my thoughts on this Project!