Within 24 hours of posting a trivia night promotion, the Muslim Student Association’s (MSA) 15 second reel, of members interrupting a board member with information about the event, garnered more than 11,000 views on Instagram.
Cultural club promotions have not just reached the UMD community — they have gone viral.
“Having a successful social media helps us increase the attendance at our events,” said Humnah Ibrahim, the MSA’s public relations officer. “If our posts are going viral or reaching more people then there is definitely a larger general body in the club.”
According to Ibrahim, the social media and her team try to follow current trends and try to make them relatable to the campus community.
The Muslim Student Association’s most well-performing reel gained more than 53,000 views and more than 1,390 likes on Instagram. The reel joked about “the Mckeldin lice trying to pull up to interorg potluck on 9/23 at 5:30” in reference to cases of body lice found on campus in September.
Ibrahim also works on public relations and social media for the Pakistani Student Association (PSA).
The senior immersive media design major said social media is important for building community on campus because it is one of the primary ways people become aware of social events.
Zehra Mehdi, a junior public health major who keeps up with different student organizations on Instagram said she noticed a change in the style of content.
“There’s a lot more interactive content now,” said Mehdi. “Before it just used to be informational, but now I see a lot more fun reels.”
Wissal Ezzaki, the public relations manager for Al Maghreb, a cultural club dedicated to the North African region encompassing Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Mauritania said you can’t plan for virality but aesthetics and following trends can play a key role in social media success.
Al Maghreb got over 15,000 views on their reel following a trend where different students were featured sharing their ethnic backgrounds.
Other cultural clubs like the Organization of Arab Students (OAS), Egyptian Student Association (ESA) and PSA have all had at least one post that gained over 10,000 views this semester.
“Living in [the] digital age, social media is one of the top platforms where people can communicate and find out about certain events,” said Ezzaki, who is a marketing analytics graduate student. “You can reach broader audiences and connect with more people that you wouldn’t have.”
Image credits: Cover photo by Amna Tariq/Al-Hikmah.
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