Your Higher Education Marketing Link of the Week… Bates College: 19 Instagrams on Home Page… 15 March 2019

19 Instagram Views Featured on Home Page = Market Research Treasure Trove

Bates College InstagramYou won’t lack for things to view on the elaborate Bates College home page. If you persist toward the end of the page you’ll find a collection of 19 Instagram visuals. And you can see the relative popularity of each one, measured by “likes.”

The full 19 are visible to people using a laptop or desktop computer. Mobile visitors will see 5 if they scroll to the end. The range of topics include

  • Welcome to the Class of 2023!
  • Voices from the Class of 2019
  • 4 snow scenes
  • 5 views of athletics
  • The president celebrating a fund raiser
  • “An Illustrated Online Tour”
  • Election of a new chair for the Board of Trustees

Research reported last October showed Instagram moving slightly ahead of Snapchat in popularity with teens. The CNBC report is here.

No doubt the folks at Bates are watching to see which topics are most popular as a market research guide to posting future content. When we visited the most popular was a “March Monday morning in Maine” snow scene… 1,368 likes.

On Mobile…

Google this month made major changes in the “Test My Site” tool. Among other points, speed is now rated using a 4G standard rather than the 3G level that Google told us 70 percent of people are still using to access mobile sites. Comparison with past Link of the Week mobile speed reports isn’t valid.

Under the new system, the Bates College home page was rated as “slow” at 3.3 seconds to download.

A new point… the ability to add up to 9 URLs from competitor sites. Be sure to do that. If the result shows that your site is slower than key competitors that might give new internal leverage to increase attention and resources to the need for a faster website.

Follow the Link of the Week…

Review the content mix of 19 Instagram topics at the Bates College home page.

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