Hey BU: Driving Student Engagement

When I partnered with the BU Today and social media teams on Hey BU, the goal wasn’t to create more content — it was to make existing content matter to students.

BU Today was already a strong newsroom: trusted, polished, and widely respected. But student engagement lagged, largely because the formats and distribution models weren’t aligned with how students actually consume information. Hey BU became an opportunity to rethink engagement strategically — not by rebuilding the newsroom, but by reframing how stories showed up in students’ lives.

The Challenge

BU Today served multiple audiences well, but students were increasingly disengaged. From a strategic perspective, several issues stood out:

  • Content targeted a broad, institutional audience, not students specifically

  • Visual language felt out of sync with social platforms

  • Email fatigue limited discovery and repeat engagement

  • Stories were strong, but not always perceived as timely or essential to student life

The challenge wasn’t editorial quality — it was relevance, context, and distribution.

The question I focused on was:
How do we extend the reach of BU Today by meeting students where they already are — without increasing production overhead?

The Strategic Insight

Students don’t live in newsletters — they live in Instagram, particularly Stories. They scan quickly, respond to visual hierarchy, and engage when content feels native rather than institutional.

The insight was simple but powerful:
Instead of asking students to come to BU Today, bring BU Today to them — in a format designed explicitly for how they consume content.

That insight became Hey BU: a branded, student-forward storytelling layer that translated BU Today articles into platform-first Instagram Stories designed for clarity, speed, and action.

Strategic Insights

The Approach

Collaborative Concept & Brand Framing

I collaborated on the concept and naming of Hey BU, intentionally choosing a tone that felt conversational, human, and approachable — more like a tap on the shoulder than an announcement.

The brand system prioritized:

  • Fast visual comprehension

  • Strong typographic hierarchy

  • High-contrast color for mobile viewing

  • Consistency across Stories to build recognition

Platform-First Storytelling

Rather than repurposing newsletter content, stories were curated specifically for Instagram Stories:

  • One idea per frame

  • Short, conversational copy

  • Clear visual anchors

  • A strong call-to-action linking back to BU Today

This ensured each Story respected the platform — and the audience’s attention — while still driving meaningful traffic.

Integrated Distribution Model

From a systems perspective, Instagram and email were treated as complementary, not competitive:

  • Instagram Stories led discovery and awareness

  • Email reinforced engagement and return visits

  • Each channel played to its strength while supporting the same content ecosystem

Test, Measure, Optimize

Performance data informed ongoing iteration — from story sequencing to subject lines. This allowed us to refine what resonated with students and scale what worked, rather than relying on assumptions.

My Role

I collaborated across teams to help shape the strategy and ensure alignment between concept, execution, and outcomes.

My contributions included:

  • Co-developing the concept and naming for Hey BU

  • Helping define the brand, visual direction, and messaging principles

  • Supporting platform-first storytelling decisions

  • Presenting strategy and results to stakeholders

  • Interpreting performance data and framing impact at a strategic level

This work emphasized shared ownership, clarity of vision, and measurable outcomes.

Campaign brand concepting

Hey BU Final Logotype

Stories and Email

Results

The Hey BU initiative delivered strong, sustained performance across channels:

  • 336,000+ Instagram impressions

  • 76% Story completion rate, consistent with top-performing native content

  • 68% email open rate — more than 2× the BU Today average

  • 50,000+ incremental visits to BU Today

    • ~20% from Instagram

    • ~80% from email

Story-level analytics demonstrated consistent engagement across a wide range of student-focused topics, validating both the content strategy and the distribution model.

The Results

Stories and Email

Recognition

Hey BU received Silver in the CASE Circle of Excellence Awards for Communications / Social Media – Student Life, recognizing its effectiveness in expanding student reach through social storytelling.

Impact

Hey BU proved that meaningful audience growth doesn’t require more content — it requires better alignment between audience behavior, platform dynamics, and institutional goals.

By reframing how BU Today content reached students, we increased engagement, extended reach, and strengthened relevance — all while working within existing editorial and production constraints.