chapter leadership

5 Ways to Improve Your Fraternity/Sorority Chapter’s Instagram Page

Is your fraternity/sorority chapter running its Instagram page correctly?

The goal of every chapter social media manager whether alumni or undergraduate should be to effectively communicate the chapter’s voice, highlight its achievements and get people excited about its events.

We at Watch The Yard communicate with hundreds of chapters each week and see a lots of room for improvement.

Here is a list of five things you can do:

Include the chapters location or university in your bio

A lot of chapters only include the greek letter name of their chapter in their bio. The thing is…those letters are really not that helpful to the general public, news stations who want to write stories about your chapter or people who want to reach out and want to follow your chapter’s activities.

EVERY chapter page Instagram bio should include the location because not everyone in the world has all of the chapters of your org memorized.

Nobody knows where the Alpha Beta Xi Delta Kappa Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi (fictional) is, but if you say “Alpha Beta Xi Delta Kappa Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi | University of South Dakota” people will be able have a better understanding of who/where you are. Give them context.

Include your chapter website as the link in your bio

Every chapter should have a website that is updated and concise. It does not need to be super complicated, it can be a small simple website with a quick ‘about’ section covering your chapter’s history, an email address that people can reach out to, links to articles about the chapter doing service in the community, links to the official social media accounts and a link to your org’s national website.

Include this link in the bio of your Instagram page.

Memes are great but make sure you are not shooting yourself in the foot

We see this a lot. The person running the chapter account sees a funny meme about fraternity/sorority life or college culture and posts it. The problem is that sometimes the memes do not follow the overall messaging of the fraternity on the national level and sometimes may be hurting your national image.

A meme about doing something like taking wood…posted on a public official chapter page…probably is a REALLY bad idea since it is technically banned by the fraternity or sorority.

It may seem small on the local level and create a lot of wanted engagement with your followers BUT it can really get your org in trouble on the national level.

Post at least once a week

People want to stay up to date with your chapter and that is why they are following you. Keep them engaged and let them know that your chapter is always working toward the goals of the fraternity or sorority.

It is pretty bad when it is November and you go to a chapter’s Instagram page and the most recent post was a flyer for a party back in April.

If you don’t have any upcoming events to highlight. Come up with ideas for content that works anytime.

This could include:

Highlighting members – Take a picture of each member and post their photo with a bio about them.
Posting old photos – Does your chapter have photos from the 60s or 70s? From the 20s? Post those every once and a while. Members and the general public love to see content like that.
Highlighting national news – Highlight the high-profile news and achievements of your brothers/sisters nationally. Keep your audience informed about how great your org is.
If you are a graduate chapter who oversees an undergraduate chapter, show your undergrads some love and highlight them individually on your page. You might help them land a job!

Comment on other chapter pages

A lot of chapters don’t do this but it really works. Comment on chapter pages from around the country or your city and show them support. A simple “great photo” or a couple of emojis can go a long way and help your chapter out in building relationships that matter.

It might even help you in getting fellow chapters to support your next event.

This is social media, be social.

Extra tip: If you are interested in gaining more followers from around the country. Leave comments under @WatchTheYard posts of your fraternity and sorority brothers/sisters from across the nation. Positive and encouraging comments can go a long way. Over 300,000 people see our posts and they are all interested in Black greek culture and chapter pages like yours.