How Digital Nest Turned Instagram Into a Student Discovery Channel

In addition to being present via the Digital Nest School of Business website, we are also very active digitally on social media. Social Media is a major part of our digital presence, and specifically Instagram (@digitalnestoffl) is a primary way in which we communicate with our students and let them see what is happening at the institute.

On Instagram, we regularly share information about courses, classroom activities, student experiences, events, accomplishments, webinars, workshops, and other relevant updates. Although we were using Instagram as a form of communication, we realized that just sharing updates was not enough. We wanted Instagram to be something more than just a place where we could share updates; we wanted it to be a true student discovery channel. Rather than focusing on how many people we could get to follow our Instagram account, what will cause a student who discovers Digital Nest on Instagram to stop scrolling, view our profile, read about us, and ultimately inquire about a course?

We thought creating a complete journey for every student is what is essential. After viewing our profile, each student may continue to engage with our content and develop a sense of familiarity and trust with the Digital Nest brand over time. Thus, we started to view Instagram as a complete student journey, starting with discovery, moving through profile exploration, engagement, developing trust, and eventually inquiry about courses.

We found that we posted in multiple different areas when we looked closely at the type of posts we made on the Digital Nest Instagram page. There were posts about courses, student experiences, institutional news, trainer-related content, event highlights, and promotional posts. This means that there was content being developed for the account. However, there was a greater issue in terms of how we developed our content creation strategy; we did not have an organized method for creating and measuring growth. Even though we created several types of posts, we had not systematically identified which formats and topics consistently attracted new people to the account as opposed to merely maintaining engagement with our current follower base.

Therefore, this is something we worked on. We began to look at our content creation from a discovery standpoint and ask ourselves: What topics will students who have never heard of Digital Nest find interesting enough to view, engage with, or visit our profile? We wanted to see if the content allowed us to connect with individuals outside our existing audience. We eventually shifted our focus towards developing repeatable content patterns like educational information and career-related content that would bring in new students, prompt them to explore our profile, and allow us to grow our Instagram presence over time.

If a Reel is posted to your feed and it goes viral attracting thousands of new followers, and none of those individuals are interested in digital marketing, SEO, social media, content creation, or career development then those followers will most likely be of very limited value to your business.

Therefore, we wanted to determine whether the individuals who were discovering @digitalnestoffl were interested in what we have to offer. We wanted our content to be seen by students, recent graduates, individuals who were considering changing careers, digital marketing learners, SEO/social media learners, aspiring content creators/graphic designers/video editors, and individuals researching different career options.

Because of this, we began evaluating our performance on Instagram in a different way. Rather than evaluating follower growth as the only measure of success, we evaluated relevant discovery: did new individuals discover our content because they are actually interested in using Digital Nest, visiting our profile page, interacting with our content, and eventually enrolling in one of our courses? It was not simply about increasing the size of our audience; it was about building an audience that was closely aligned with the educational and career opportunities available at Digital Nest.

We took a closer look at what students were most interested in, we found that digital marketing alone provided a vast amount of content possibilities. Students wanted to find out about digital marketing as a profession, what skills they needed to acquire, if SEO was still relevant today, what a digital marketer does, what beginner-friendly tools exist, how to find their first job, if freelancing is a viable option, what to put into a portfolio, how to gain knowledge in social media marketing, and how SEO differs from paid advertising.

We began using these types of questions as a basis for our content creation rather than creating all of our posts centered on Digital Nest. This was a significant transition for us as it enabled us to develop content that addressed issues that students were already struggling with. In addition to creating content that students would be able to relate to and find value in, we were able to provide students with valuable resources prior to promoting Digital Nest.

Ultimately, we believed that this would be a more effective strategy for positioning Digital Nest on Instagram, not only as an institution that promotes courses, but also as a source of practical information for individuals interested in pursuing a career in digital marketing. Therefore, students would have greater motivation to explore, follow, and return to the account.

As we continued to expand the Digital Nest Instagram presence, we began to see the potential for using short-form video (specifically Reels) as another means to connect with individuals outside of our current follower base. Rather than approaching each Reel with the expectation that it would become viral, our primary goal was to provide immediate understanding and relevance to any student who may encounter our video for the first time.

Therefore, we focused on producing videos, and we experimented with providing information regarding digital marketing advice, SEO strategies, professional development advice, AI and digital marketing, available marketing tools, common errors made by beginners, student inquiries, trainer suggestions, industry trends, and job opportunities.

Because students are deciding whether or not to continue viewing a Reel in a matter of seconds while browsing Instagram. This enabled us to shift from producing videos just as a requirement to post to producing short-form content that provides a compelling motivation for a person unfamiliar with Digital Nest to pause and possibly view deeper into our offerings.

We chose practical, topic-driven "hooks" (e.g., Top 5 Resume Building Tips; Paid vs. Free AI Tools; 5 AI Assist Tools for Content Creation; 5 Tips to Optimize Your Instagram Profile; Fix 3 Settings Before Posting; Best Upload Timings). Each topic provided a clear incentive for viewers to continue viewing the Reel since each provided specific information as opposed to a general overview. This factor was taken into account when planning our Reels, selecting topics, and presenting content to our audience.

We found that the benefit of our training program can be shown using student experience as opposed to conventional marketing techniques. To ensure that the materials used to describe our programs were representative of events that occurred beyond the scope of a typical course description (e.g., student interaction with instructors, participation in hands-on projects, development of new skills, and preparation for future employment), we decided to focus more on student reviews, learning experiences, job placement success rates, and individual student successes. Additionally, we viewed these types of student success stories as a way to relate our program descriptions to potential students looking for information about what to expect prior to enrolling.

The final results below show the important key metrics that include profile visits, engagement with reels, views, stories, and posts. These metrics help us understand what is working well and where we should make changes to our digital marketing plan.