Instagram Launches New School Experience to Help College Students Connect on Campus
Instagram announced a new school experience for US college students. After verifying their student email through UNiDAYS, students can add a school banner to their profile and access a directory of confirmed classmates, organized by graduation year.
Why It Matters: The feature is Instagram's take on TikTok's Campus Verification, which launched about a week ago. It allows students to connect with others on their campus — from making new friends, to finding other student creators to collaborate with, to recruiting peers for brand ambassador programs.
Recently, there's been a big push by social media platforms in launching new features and experiences that cater to Gen Z audiences. In addition to Instagram and TikTok, Snapchat recently acquired Saturn, a calendar app for high school and college students, and has slowly integrated it.
At the core, these are efforts to help younger users connect in real life, but also cater to these very demographics, where social media is a huge part of their everyday lives and will be as they get older.
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