As Edward Ter-Hovhannisyan, senior, scrolled through his Instagram feed, he noticed that many school clubs have started Instagram accounts, posting reels to advertise at their school. 

Ter-Hovhannisyan runs the Tri-M Music Honors Society Instagram, and after seeing the success of other schools, he decided to try creating Instagram reels. 

“You have to apply for Tri-M, so I just started making videos to get people to apply for the club,” Ter-Hovhannisyan said. 

He said his reel ideas come from trends online, such as the “I hope they play ‘Fein’” trend, which he turned into “I hope they play ‘Hamilton’” to feature the MHS orchestra concert. He loves featuring other club members or music students in his content. 

“I enjoy the collaboration because everyone gets excited to be in the reels and they have fun making them,” Ter-Hovhannisyan said. 

Ter-Hovhannisyan said last year, the club was smaller with 30 club members. This year, there were closer to 80 club members at the first Tri-M meeting, which he found out was primarily because of the Instagram account, as there were many responses on the application form referring to the content. 

“Not only does it benefit our Tri-M club, but creating reels helps the whole music education movement get stronger,” Ter-Hovhannisyan said. 

According to DemandSage, Instagram has 2 billion active users and 500 million active daily users worldwide. This makes up 37% of the world’s internet users. Instagram is also currently the third most popular social media platform. 

Vismaya Vinod, senior, has also seen the growth of the Gluons robotics team through their outreach activities such as the reels on their Instagram. 

“Making reels was an idea we’ve always had, but this year we put more effort into it, and we tried to make it better so that we could get more involvement,” Vinod said. 

The Gluons enjoy making their videos during club meetings. Though most of the reels are created by their business team, they include the entire club in brainstorming sessions to gather ideas for their content. They try to create reels that are funny but also heavily relate to robotics. 

“A lot of people, especially within the Marquette community, have seen it, and they’ve been really interested that we’re doing things like this, especially if they’re not really interested in the robotics side of the club,” Vinod said. 

Vinod hopes that future applicants for the Gluons team will see these reels and feel inspired to join the club for the community building aspect of it. 

The Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) club at MHS has a similar story about deciding to create reels on their Instagram account. During the officer planning meeting that took place the summer before school started, Crystal Strate, FBLA adviser, and FBLA officers decided to post interactive content on the FBLA Instagram in the upcoming school year. 

When the FBLA officers came up with the idea of creating reels, initially Strate was hesitant, but eventually went along with the idea. 

Whenever the officers decide to create a reel, they first bring their video idea to Strate, and after she approves, they visit her classroom after school to record. 

“They’ve had me record a couple of things for them. I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time so they have to train me,” Strate said. 

Strate has become more open to the idea of posting reels after seeing the positive feedback and interactions they have received online. 

“I think it brings awareness to what FBLA is because people see this and they’re like ‘hold on, this is funny,’ or ‘this is interesting’,” Strate said. 

Lisa Nieder, administrative assistant, encourages other MHS clubs to make Instagram reels, as it is a good way to promote a club within the community. 

“That’s part of advertising and marketing, and it makes students want to be part of it, so why not,” Nieder said. 

Nieder warns clubs to make sure that their sponsors have editing rights over the account, and have viewed and approved anything that is posted. In general, all content should be appropriate and follow school rules, if associated with Marquette. 

“It’s just like following regular school guidelines,” Nieder said. 

This story was originally published on Marquette Messenger on April 14, 2025.