In the Digital team we believe in being user-led in everything that we do. One way that we do this is through employing current Exeter students to work within our team. Deborah is our current Digital Strategy Communications and Engagement Assistant who helps us to communicate everything that we are doing to help improve the student experience at Exeter to our student community. Read this blog post to learn about Deborah’s recent Instagram takeover where she shared her life at university and her role in the Digital team.
Who am I and what is my role in the Digital team?
I’m Deborah, a third year medical student and a Digital Strategy Communications and Engagement Assistant in the Digital team at the University of Exeter. This is my second year working in this role with the Digital Team and I love getting to work in such a varied role. My focuses so far this year have been on communicating the digital strategy to students, ensuring they know what the University is doing to help improve the student experience here at Exeter. I’ve been promoting the new student web based app to students, attending the Digital team’s student workshops to give my views on the app, and also creating social media content for the team.
Recently I did a takeover of the @exeterunilife Instagram account, sharing posts about my life at University, my studies, my role in the Digital team, and all of the ways that students can benefit from the work we do in the Digital team.
Planning for the takeover
I had managed Instagram accounts before, but those were personal ones so did not have the same amount of pressure as taking over the @exeterunilife account. Saying that I felt fully competent and confident prior to this would be a lie – I felt quite self-conscious about my posts as this time they would have much more visibility than normal!
Strong planning and organisation combined with Scarlett and the Digital team’s support were my compass the month prior to this takeover week. We had to find the right balance between the Digital team and Deborah’s takeover, which meant brainstorming what we were going to talk about, how and when. Scarlett and the team helped me get the content I needed to promote the app and the work of the Digital team as well as possible, leaving me feeling prepared on the Monday of the takeover.
How was the takeover?
Despite my initial worries, I had so much fun doing the takeover! This reminded me of my days on Instagram when I was handling a bookstagram as well as a photography and podcast account. I enjoyed creating the content and editing videos as well as doing my little stories everyday which just felt like riding a bike.
Creating content for an account that isn’t my own was so much fun and was really creatively stimulating. I made sure to add a bit of my personality in each of the reels and posts even when I was not the main subject – this was a challenge at first as I sometimes struggle to talk about myself, but I loved it in the end! This week’s takeover was completely different from previous experiences I’ve had in this role and others so it taught me a lot.
What I learnt
Obviously this was a very different experience from my day-to-day life as a medical student. Here, I got to create content for something specific. It felt like I had more freedom in the creation of the content as I was not the only face of this takeover and I got to work closely with Scarlett and others in the team to create engaging content, relieving some of the pressure I first felt. Representing the Digital team meant I had to create around another entity’s identity but made sure to add a bit of my own personality to each post.
Having experience in content creation definitely helped me feel a bit more capable as I had done it in the past and was familiar with the tools I needed. However, it was a totally different experience as I got to see how this could be used to promote something compared to just sharing it with no real objectives. This time I was not only posting content that I enjoyed, I was also trying to engage an audience and grab their attention. And even though numbers are not everything, it was nice to see that we did engage the @exeterunilife followers and reach out to new ones.
So I think it is safe to say that I loved this week’s takeover which helped me develop some new skills as well as reinforce old ones. It was definitely something that I would like to do again, so a massive thank you to the Digital Team for trusting me and giving me this opportunity!
– Written by Deborah Phan Huy, Digital Strategy Communications and Engagement Assistant
To learn more about how students can get involved with the team, visit our website or get in touch here.