Week 8 Post A - Finding Instagram Role Models

Let me begin by saying that I am not trolling Instagram looking for hot people with smoky filters and thousands of followers. I'm looking for examples of people or businesses who navigate Instagram successfully. I'm looking for accounts that are posting about mathematics and education, that have a decent number of followers, and that know how to use "#" and "@" to their advantage. 

@mashupmath

Mashup Math is an account that focuses mainly on three areas: math puzzles for kids, funny memes, and comments about education and teaching. They built a following of 18,900 people. Their last post was in November 2019, so it's been almost a year since the last post. However, I can definitely understand the Mashup Math style from past posts and still get inspiration. I noticed that some of the ads for math videos has hundreds of views, but there was more engagement when there was a meme or a math puzzle. Users would post their answers or tag a friend to try to find the answer. There was a particular spike when the puzzle had a line that said, "Only 1% of people who attempt this get it right." Whether that line was true or not, it was an interesting marketing strategy. 

I also learned that I need to up my hashtag game. I was using 3-4 hashtags with the word "math" in most of them so that it wouldn't crowd my post. I saw that Mashup Math was loading the hashtags in the comments section, which I thought was better for the post, aesthetically speaking. Also, they aren't all linked to math, but to general interests and targeted viewer groups: #students #teachers.

 

@themathguru

The Math Guru is a boutique tutoring studio run by Vanessa. It seems like Vanessa is focused on creating a brand and business in math education and breaking stereotypes. She is an author, has a podcast, and recently held a panel discussion for young women in STEM. The Math Guru has 3,378 followers. The engagement is consistent to around 100+ likes for photos. There seem to be more views if the Math Guru is posting a video. There aren't too many comments, but that could be due to the fact that the posts mostly involve Vanessa's stories and uplifting comments, but don't ask much of the viewers. There's no direction to tag someone or comment and not that many hashtags are being used. The one post that got a large number of comments was when Vanessa posted something personal about being 2 years sober. I think that is an amazing accomplishment and something to be celebrated, however, I don't know if I could go that personal online. 

To wrap up with the assignment in mind (about hashtags and navigating IG), the Math Guru does have a hashtag for her podcast #maththerapy. That gives me the idea that I should try to adopt #radmath.

@mathmattersmostly

Math Matters Mostly is a new online tutoring business that is in its initial stages out of Texas, so I thought it would be interesting to see how they develop and how they take off. I'm rooting for this team! The first post was in July, and they have 30 so far. There are 53 followers (RadMathTutoring included), which is not a strong social media following yet. They had a few repeating posts at the beginning and were using the funny memes angle. I noticed that the posts have become more dynamic and business-centered in October. I think they are also posting 2-3 times a week. They have posted a few videos of online tutoring, which received several hundred views. I think this is a great example of how someone can try to use social media to launch a business. Their use of regional hashtags for Texas is interesting. It gave me the idea to try out cities in southern CA or try out local schools (middle schools, high schools, and colleges).


@vnhs.vmt

Virtual Math Tutoring is also an online business. I wanted to include this one to see if there is any growth in the future. There is one post total. The post was made on September 28, and it's an image of contact information. Essentially it's an online business card with no hashtags. The account has 32 followers currently, and it might stay that way. There would have been a time when I would have thought this was a very clever setup, and the easy maintenance would have been appealing to me, but now I see that this is a major under-use of a pretty powerful platform.  

The lesson learned here is use and do something to get your business out there, even just #onlinetutoring and a weekly post.

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