Making Research Matter on Social Media
Case Study: Social media campaign 
I pitched and developed this campaign to showcase the breadth of research happening at the university—to make (prospective and current) undergraduate students aware and excited about the distinctive opportunities that exist at Lehigh.
Because Instagram is a veritable goldmine of analytics, I used this campaign as an opportunity to A/B test how best to leverage the Instagram story platform to connect with @LehighU followers about research work.
SpecsClient: Lehigh University
Scope: Concept, copywriting/copyediting, design and animation
Recognition: CUPPIE Awards | Digital Media, Social Media Campaign (Silver)
The Challenge How to Encourage Meaningful Engagement on this Platform?
Lehigh produces a steady stream of research news, but long-form articles aren't always the most effective way to reach students on social media. The challenge was to distill complex research stories into content that felt relevant, engaging, and native to Instagram while encouraging audiences to learn more.
An evidence-based Approach Testing Two Distinct Storytelling Formats
Approach A: Narrative Stories
With this approach, long-form articles were adapted into multi-panel Instagram stories that focussed on the most compelling aspects of the research.
To make the content relatable, the artwork featured the researchers and the spaces where they conduct their work.
The goal was to create a narrative that helped viewers understand the research before deciding whether to read the article in its entirety.
Approach B: Poster-style Stories
The second approach distilled articles into single-panel Instagram stories that functioned like posters with catchy headlines, brief descriptions and a link to the long-form news story.
Artwork for this approach was more graphic in nature, with vibrant colour palettes and bold typography bringing energy to layouts.
Rather than telling the entire story, these pieces aimed to capture attention quickly and drive traffic to the article webpage.
Findings Analysing the A/B Test Results
In terms of sheer views, approach ‘B’ (single-panel stories) appeared to perform better. However, because the multi-panel approach of ‘A’ allows the viewer to better understand whether or not the content is relevant to them, this presentation showed better, deeper, more sustained engagement.
The LehighU Instagram audience is willing to engage with longer (multi-panel) stories—they’re interested enough that the vast majority of viewers will stay till the end of a 6-panel story.
Regardless of a story’s length, most of our audience is not interested in following/tapping on the last panel’s call to action, which leads to the webpage with the full news story. This was true in both the single- and multi-panel versions.
Impact The Strategy Moving Forward
This project established an evidence-based approach to communicating research on social media and demonstrated the value of designing around audience behaviour rather than assumptions.
Instagram stories about research are now self-contained to include the key details within the piece so readers who don’t tap-the-link-to-learn-more aren’t missing anything vital—about the work and/or the people and infrastructure involved.