The Scribe asked students to search “UCCS” in their Instagram search bar and recorded the top five accounts that came up.
Across the 14 students asked, 24 accounts came up. The most common account was the official @uccs account, which was the first recommendation for 13 of the 14 students, followed by @uccs_barstool_ which was recommended for 11 students. UCCS Barstool is an account that mimics the official Barstool Sports account, posting UCCS related memes and sports content.
Of the top 10 accounts that were recommended to students, four of them were sports teams.
Of the 24 accounts that came up, 13 were recommended to only one student. These accounts were:
- UCCS Women’s Rugby Club @uccswomensrugby
- UCCS American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics @aiaa_uccs
- Carry the Love UCCS @ctl_uccs
- UCCS Athletics @gomountainlions
- UCCS Phi Sigma Sigma @uccs_phisig
- UCCS Figure Skating Club @uccfigureskating
- UCCS Dance Team @uccsdanceteam
- UCCS Women’s Club Soccer @uccs.womensclubsoccer
- UCCS Asian Pacific Islander Student Union @uccs_apisu
- UCCS Sisterhood Club @sisterhood_uccs
- UCCS Heller Center @uccshellercenter
- UCCS Latin Student Union @lsu_uccs_
- UCCS Speech and Debate @uccsspeechanddebate
According to Instagram, the search algorithm combines three factors to rank search results: the text searched; the user’s activity, including accounts the user follows; and posts the user has viewed and interacted with, which is assessed using popularity signals like clicks, likes, shares and follows.
The official UCCS account is the most followed of the accounts that were most recommended for students, with 19,500 followers. The rest of the accounts that came up fluctuate in popularity, and there seems to be no clear tie between follower count and why the accounts were recommended.
UCCS Squirrels, @uccssquirrels, was recommended for two students, but it only has 138 followers. There are accounts with significantly more followers that didn’t come up for any students, like UCCS SGA, @uccs_sga, which has 869 followers, UCCS Mosaic Office, @uccs_mosaic, which has 1,184 followers, and UCCS Radio, @uccsradio, which has 1,008 followers.
There was some relationship between students’ majors and extracurriculars and what accounts were recommended for them. Freshman aerospace engineering major Camryn Spearman was recommended UCCS American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She plays club rugby and was recommended UCCS Women’s Rugby Clubs.
Other students were recommended accounts that seemed to have little relevance to them. Freshman Julia Gonzales was recommended both UCCS Pi Beta Phi and UCCS Phi Sigma Sigma despite not being a part of Greek life on campus.
Seniors Carlos Gonzalez and Avishi Singh were both recommended UCCS Class of 2028, despite having a graduation date in Spring 2025.
Graphic courtesy of MacRumors.