Influencers share their lives with prospective students

by MADISON MCCALLUM

Staff Writer

The ZeeMee Influencer Program is a new partnership opportunity for students to showcase student life, as well as the quirks and personality of the UMW campus, to prospective students. 

ZeeMee is a social media platform that offers prospective college students the opportunity to get a feel for the schools they are considering attending. Similar to Instagram and Facebook, users are able to share text, photos and videos, allowing them to look into what their life may be like in the coming months. The layout of the app is almost identical to an Instagram feed, swiping up and down to view each post, leaving likes and comments and replying to others’ comments. Not only do the university’s influencers post on the app, but students who are interested or committed to attending the school post introductions on the app, allowing them to engage with each other and look for potential roommates and friends. 

“Colleges love to show you a clean and pristine image of campus life, but you don’t often see the mundane, everyday things. It’s great to show a candid view to them about what it’s really like here,” said senior theater major and ZeeMee influencer Riley Salazar.

Following a lengthy selection process, students from various academic and engagement backgrounds were offered the opportunity to share their college experience, allowing influencers to show how different everyone’s collegiate experience can be. Influencers are involved in different organizations around campus, such as UMW Theatre or the Office of Student Activities and Engagement, or they may simply have an interest in social media and a love for the university.

Senior marketing major Kayla Zengada, the student coordinator of publicity for SAE, became a ZeeMee Influencer this past year. Zengada overheard the university’s social media manager, Paige Shiplett, discuss the possibility of having social media-savvy students in influencer positions. A few days later, Zengada received an invitation to be a member of the first generation of ZeeMee influencers. She felt that her passion for the school and her experience in social media management made this an opportunity she had to take advantage of. 

“I really enjoy seeing prospective students and how excited they are to come to Mary Wash!” Zengada said. 

Influencers are required to produce three to five posts a week on the platform, as well as monitor the #AskACurrentStudent chat offered through the app. Posts that the influencers create are meant to be creative, interactive and realistic in regards to student life. Influencers are not only encouraged to engage with prospective students on the app but also other influencers on the ZeeMee app and other platforms. These influencers are given the freedom to share whatever they feel is relevant in their day, which is completed by relentlessly taking pictures and videos of all things Mary Washington. 

“I pretty much document everything I do,” said junior communication and digital studies and theatre major Hannah Chester, a ZeeMee influencer. “I take cool pictures of things I love on campus and I make a post and move along with my day. It’s really a great position and I love getting to know some of the current high school seniors who are interested in coming here!” 

Although similar programs have existed in past years, this is the first year that the university has partnered with ZeeMee.

“This experience has been a really creative and rewarding way to connect with prospective students and show off UMW. I love being able to show students what I do in a day, so they can get a feel for what college will look like!” said junior accounting major and ZeeMee influencer Emily Whitt.