In the training we paid attention to both 'how do you organize a technically good Insta Live?' and 'what are you going to tell, how do you build your session?'. The manual also contained a handy checklist (pdf). This made the students confident in their session. Everyone had the technique under control, knew what he/she wanted to tell and knew how to deal with the incoming questions. This created space to really make contact with the student.
For Hogeschool Rotterdam it was new to organize sessions on such a large scale via Instagram Live. It turned out to be very important to inform colleagues at different levels in the organization at different times. Before starting about the why, about our approach and what we needed from them. In addition, we have seen that it is important to continue sharing interim successes so that the enthusiasm was shared more and more widely.
The colleagues from the study information team also became enthusiastic and actively participated. They also did a number of live sessions themselves. We heard from them that a Q&A via Instagram Live does not replace the real conversation with the young person for them. They miss being able to ask further questions in order to get to the core of the question.
So remember that Instagram Live is a good alternative for korea telegram datasome of your contact with young people, but not all of it.
Two students looking at their mobile phones on their bikes. Photo via Hogeschool Rotterdam.
Practical tips
Besides preparing and involving colleagues, we ultimately learned the most by just getting started. We would like to share some practical tips from our experience:
Work in pairs , from two accounts. This creates a dynamic conversation.
Prepare the content and structure well together . Give an introduction, prepare a list of topics, agree on who does what, complement each other and close with an opportunity to ask questions afterwards. Practice this in advance.
Always use a moderator to remove potential trolls during the live session . This gives the young people who are going live confidence and support.
Don't let the session go on too long . 30 minutes worked fine for us.
Make sure you have a good announcement in your timeline and story . Preferably a video in which the student introduces himself, with a question sticker and a countdown.
