How I Helped My Sorority Become the Most-Followed Chapter on Instagram

When I was elected Vice President of Marketing for Alpha Phi's Beta Epsilon chapter at the University of Arizona in 2022, I wanted to do more than manage our social media presence and design merchandise. I set myself a goal: to become the most-followed sorority in the world by the end of my one-year term. With the help of my cabinet, we achieved that goal—increasing our TikTok following by 185% and increased our Instagram following by 46%.

I approached this process like a brand marketing and digital marketing campaign—integrating social media strategy, public relations, content creation, and creative direction.

1. Creating a Brand Identity

After selecting my marketing cabinet, I held a meeting where we developed what Alpha Phi's brand identity would look like for the year ahead. By the time we took over the social media accounts, our following and engagement had stagnated, so we were ready for a refresh. One over our first tasks was conducting a social media audit. During this audit, we analyzed what our current brand identity looked like. Then, we researched other sororities and companies who conveyed similar values or identities to our chapter. We took notes of brand typography, content types, static image poses, captions, and overall trends.

This social media audit allowed us to draw inspiration from other accounts that were excelling in their social media presence. We then created our own brand marketing strategy that outlined fonts, ideas for posts, trends to hop on, and posting frequency.

This step laid the foundation for our digital brand identity and helped us shape a cohesive content strategy across platforms.

2. Building the Social Media Strategy

After we finalized our brand identity, our next step was developing a consistent social media growth strategy. Our main efforts were focused on Instagram and TikTok, but we also cross-posted content onto Pinterest, VSCO, and X.

I created a visually pleasing content calendar on Canva and uploaded it to our shared Google Drive Folder. This included dates for philanthropy fundraisers, social events, recruitment, holidays, and other important moments that would be relevant for our brand to post about. Then, I created a monthly running document detailing dates for each post to go live, platforms to post on, and captions. Lastly, I created a spreadsheet with every active member's name so I could keep track of how many times they were posted. With a chapter of around 400 members, I wanted everyone to feel represented and included. All of these documents made it easier to edit content in real time and submit to our chapter advisors for approval. Although our active members reside in Tucson, AZ,a lot of other followers were from across the country. We tested out different posting times, but ultimately found that 12PM AZ time was best for generating high engagement.

3. Optimizing Our Instagram

Our best performing static image content contained one of two characteristics:

1. Candid instead of poses

2. Unique text-on-image graphics.

Candid photos of members made our feed look more authentic. At the time, the "cool girl" aesthetic was trending and young adults wanted to make Instagram casual. We leaned into this trend and noticed that these types of photos saw higher engagement. We also created content combining imagery with text overlays. It made our content unique and saw many other sororities create similar content inspired by ours. One of my goals was to post Instagram Reels consistently. By cross-posting our TikTok videos, we increased brand awareness with minimal additional effort since the content was already created for another platform. By analyzing, engagement data and post performance, we developed an Instagram marketing strategy that balances aesthetics with authenticity.

4. Going Viral on TikTok

Instagram helped us define our brand, but TikTok helped us increase reach and engagement through short-form video marketing. As part of our content calendar, we planned to post on TikTok twice a week when there were no events happening. If there was an event, we posted more content during to support it. Part of our TikTok strategy was to hop on trends that fit our brand—like the Vogue Questions + House Tour series, What's in my Alpha Phi Bag (featuring the makeup bag we designed), Day in My Life videos, and the This Barbie is... trend. We also noticed that creating original content performed well, so we began experimenting with creating our own trends. Analyzing our analytics during the school year helped us prepare for one of TikTok's most viral moments: RushTok.

During Work Week, the week before Recruitment begins, we planned video ideas, dances, and sounds that matched each day's themes. We made videos that followed RushTok trends, but also assigned popular audios to our dancer members who choreographed original dances. The videos posted over a three-week-period of Work Week and Recruitment brought in 10.6 million views. This experience taught me that going viral on social media is about balancing existing trends while also being a thought leader and creating your own. It also deepened my understanding of social media analytics and how to use data to drive creative decision-making.

5. What I Learned

Leading this strategy taught me that brand marketing and digital marketing are about understanding people and platforms. Before we had much insight into our analytics, we conducted the social media audit to find inspiration and trending brand strategies. It helped us understand what content our audience was looking for: candid, authentic, and trend-aware storytelling. Once we began posting, analyzing platform data became incredibly important. This allowed us to find out what times were ideal to post, which types of content viewers drove engagement the most, and how to be visible on each algorithm. This experience solidified my passion for brand marketing and digital marketing, so that I can create stories that genuinely connect audiences.