Build It, And Students Will Follow

A case study in building meaningful digital spaces for modern students.

If you spend enough time talking to university students, you learn two things fast. They’re juggling approximately 12,000 things at once, and they definitely don’t have time to go hunting across 14 different social accounts to figure out where to find a free therapy dog or the deadline for dropping a class. 

When Adverb Communications became the University of Alberta’s social media agency of record, we took on the challenge of creating one reliable, engaging, actually-useful online channel where all 46,000 students could find the information they needed. 

So we built @UofAStudentLife. One single, centralized, “please stop scrolling; we actually have what you need” home for everything students might be looking for during the semester. One account to rule them all. One account to cut through the noise. One account to save that overwhelmed first-year who’s trying to get from DICE to AgFor to SUB through the pedways at -40°C and is one wrong turn away from emotionally shutting down beside a vending machine.

And if we were going to build one channel for 46,000 students, it had to feel human, timely, inclusive, and genuinely helpful. The last thing we wanted was to end up on r/fellowkids by posting  “corporate content wearing a backwards hat.” So instead of guessing, we grounded everything in actual student insights. We dug into the Student Life Cycle — a month-by-month look at students’ stress points, motivations, emotions, and behaviours — to help us understand what every type of student really needs. From wide-eyed first-years to busy upper-years, grad students living in research caves, and international students navigating a whole new country. Each audience has its own pressures, anxieties, and opportunities, and the content we created had to reflect that.

With the account consolidated, we finally had the foundation to build a content engine that was both strategic and nimble. Monthly planning sessions with the U of A team kept us aligned with campus rhythms and upcoming pressure points, giving us a clear picture of what students needed most. From there, we leaned into formats students actually respond to—memeified graphics, helpful and eye-catching carousels, trending vertical video—and we made sure that all the information they needed lived in-platform, so students didn’t have to tap a bunch of links or leave Instagram just to get answers to their questions. 

The rule was simple: if the content wasn’t useful, relevant, supportive, or fun, it didn’t make the cut.

And the results spoke for themselves. Between mid-August and December 2024, the account didn’t just grow; it blew up. We hit more than 416,300 organic impressions (a casual 372.9% increase), racked up 12,000+ engagements (that’s a 164% jump), and welcomed 1,577 new followers, cruising past our year-end goal. And we did that organically, without any paid support. Students weren’t just glancing at the content; they were saving it, sharing it, sending it to their friends, and actually using it to navigate life on campus. That’s when you know you’ve built something meaningful.

Our ongoing work on the University of Alberta Student Life channel has earned us both an IABC Capital Award and an IABC Silver Leaf Award of Excellence. Awards always feel nice (I won’t pretend they don’t), but what really matters is what they confirm: that intentional, student-centred content isn’t just “nice to have,” it’s desperately needed. 

Students want clarity. They want connection. And when you combine solid strategy, a collaborative client, and a team that understands the heartbeat of campus life, you can build a channel that genuinely makes a difference… one thoughtful, human, occasionally meme-powered post at a time.