Guidelines to make your Instagram Story a success.

We are so excited to collaborate with you on this story for the Faculty of Arts’ Instagram account! This guide was created to ensure you have the information and support you need to feel comfortable throughout the process. Let’s dive in!

About the @UBC_Arts Instagram Account

@UBC_Arts is run by Arts Communications, out of the Office of the Dean of Arts, and has become our most popular social channel among undergraduate students. Our main goals on Instagram are: 

  1. To offer a genuine student perspective on what it’s like to study and spend time as an Arts student at UBC,
  2. To promote opportunities and programs that are relevant to Arts students,
  3. And to support the success of our students academically, professionally, and beyond!

How we build our stories

Our team works closely with our content creators to create high quality “stories” for Instagram.

Pre-Production

The creative brief: is a collaborative document that we will share with you at the beginning of the project. The brief will include background info about the project, story goals, possible interview questions, and timelines.

The project kickoff: will be our first meeting to discuss the creative brief and any questions you may have before you start creating content.

Production

Record the videos: see below for a quick guide on how to record and save videos using the Instagram app:

 

Pick a photo of yourself: for the Story intro card and announcement post. Photos need to have a minimum width and height of 1080px.

Send us the files: in the creative brief, we will include a URL to a Google folder that you can upload all the files to.

Post-Production

We take it from here: from editing out any awkward stops and starts, to captioning, and adding stickers over the videos, our team will make sure your story is nicely polished before we publish it to Instagram.

Left: video provided by student, Right: video with captions and stickers

Important tips

Here are some important things to be aware of before you start:

  1. Time Commitment: Try not to exceed 20–25 snippets during your story. Short and sweet is often the best.
  2. Captioning your takeover: Please caption your stories, either by using the Caption feature on Instagram or typing out a short gist of what you’re saying. Try to keep the text font and colour consistent throughout.
  3. Send us your Instagram @username so we can tag you in our post and story (optional).
  4. Get permission to film others: Are your friends taking part? That’s great! Make sure you have their permission to include them before you start recording.
  5. Ask for help when you need it. Please let us know if you need any support throughout the creative process. We hope that this will be as enjoyable an experience for you as it will be for our viewers.
  6. Cross promotion: In addition to sharing your story on the Faculty of Arts Instagram account, content could potentially be featured by other UBC channels (e.g. @ubc_studentlife). If you are not okay with this, please let us know immediately.

Things to avoid

  1. DON’T post private/sensitive information (i.e. your address, student number, or any other personal details that should be kept private).
  2. DON’T criticize people or groups in your stories. This is your story, but try to keep it positive.
  3. DON’T include nudity or partial nudity, swearing, or references to alcohol or drug use.

We know this is common-sense stuff. We just have to mention it. 😉

Story examples

Need some inspiration? Explore some of our past stories:

Meet your Imagine UBC 2020 Arts Orientation Leaders

 

Meet Arts Co-op Student Ervin Wong

 

Meet your Imagine UBC 2020 O-Profs

 

Don’t be afraid to show your personality and have fun! Whether you’re more reserved or outgoing, your story is the perfect place to share your style — whatever it is.

Thank you!

If you have any questions or concerns about any of these guidelines, please get in touch with Arts Communications.