How I Find & Post User Generated Content on UNH Social Media

@UNHStudents is a student-intern-run Instagram account for students at the University of New Hampshire. There are, on average, 3–5 feed posts per week on the UNH Students Instagram account. This may pose the question, where does all this content come from?

What is UGC?

First off let’s define UGC, also known as User Generated Content. Put simply, user-generated content can be any form of content; images, videos, text, or audio that is posted by any user on social media platforms.

In the realm of my job, most of the UGC I find is from UNH students, staff, and organizations. When it comes to the platform, typically I can find the most content on Instagram as that is where our target demographic has the strongest presence.

Where do I find UGC?

Instagram is the easiest for me to find user-generated content, and there are a few methods that I use to find good photos or videos to repost on our channel. Some ways produce better content than others but having different spots to look helps me find new and exciting things. I usually start with tagged photos since I get notifications for those, then move to the feed, then search location tags and hashtags. This gives me a well-rounded view of what content is out there and what would work best for the student channel.

#1: Tagged Photos

The first place I start is our channel’s tagged photos and videos. I usually find a lot of photos there from our student organizations since they tag us frequently to promote their events. Looking through these posts is convenient since most of the people who tag us will automatically give permission for us to repost their content.

#2: Our Feed

The next place I like to look is our feed! The other interns and I are constantly following previous, current, and future UNH students. This gives us a lot of content to scroll through and pick out. Again, a lot of these students allowed us to follow them so they usually give us consent to reshare their photos.

#3: Location Tags

After that, I will go to the location tags. The best ones I go to are Durham, New Hampshire, and the University of New Hampshire. These give me some great images of people around campus and downtown. Typically, these posts feature a specific area of campus, downtown businesses, and exciting events. Using location tags also allows me to find content from accounts that we don’t follow or that don’t follow us!

#4: Hashtags

Lastly, I look at the UNH hashtags. The most common tags used by the UNH channels are #ThisIsUNH #UofNH #UNH #InstaUNH and #UNHSocial. This is usually my last step since not a lot of students or personal accounts use hashtags, but this can be helpful! We also have #UNHThanks #UNHTogether and #UNHLove for specific events and holidays.

What do I do once I find good UGC?

Now once I find a photo I think would perform well on our channel, I ask permission to share! Most times this is a simple comment on the post saying something along the lines of “Hey Wildcat! Love this pic, mind if we repost?” or “We would love to share this! Reply #InstaUNH to agree”. Many times, I throw in an emoji relevant to the post or a cat because well…Wildcats!

If someone doesn’t want us to share their photo we kindly abide and leave a nice comment, once again complementing their post. Not everyone wants their face seen by our 14,000+ followers and I get that!

If they do agree, I either screenshot the post or request an unedited version through a direct message. I try to keep our channel as natural and unedited as possible but also focus on the blue tones of photos to match our school colors. Then I schedule out the post with a fun caption and credit the original poster in the caption or by tagging them in the post.