From the Nominator

To spotlight the outstanding residency training programs at the University of Florida College of Medicine and engage key audiences—current and prospective residents—we launched a monthly residency Reels series on Instagram. Each video featured a new residency specialty, combining user-generated content filmed by residents with editing, captions, and trending music from our communications team. Our goals included boosting program visibility and achieving measurable engagement metrics of 50 shares, 300 likes, and 5,000 plays per video alongside meaningful interactions from peer institutions, medical organizations, and prospective residents. The campaign resonated globally, leveraging English and Spanish to reach a U.S.-based audience with a significant Floridian subpopulation, where 23% of Florida households speak Spanish at home, per the 2019 U.S. Census. Results far exceeded our targets, averaging over 47,500 plays and 300 shares per video—more than six times our goal. Qualitative highlights included national and state medical organizations like the American Medical Association, Association of American Medical Colleges, and Florida Medical Association liking and engaging with our content. We also saw heartfelt comments from prospective residents inspired by the videos and program alumni reminiscing fondly about their time at UF. This initiative successfully fostered connection and excitement about UF’s residency programs, demonstrating the power of short-form video content in strengthening institutional reputation and recruitment efforts via social media.

From the Judges

Day-in-the-life video campaigns are very tricky to do well, but this team nailed it—and they have exceptional results to prove it. Residency Reels truly is an exemplar in the day-in-the-life genre, and we hope that others will learn from it. They empowered their medical residents to capture real, unfiltered glimpses of their days, and their trust was rewarded with genuinely entertaining, relatable content that overflows with personality and authenticity. As the team put it, they paired this “grassroots approach with professional editing, captions, and on-trend music,” striking a “balance between organic and polished.”