How student-led storytelling became a measurable growth engine

Follett Higher Education supports campus bookstores across the U.S., helping students access the gear, materials, and essentials they need throughout the academic year. But reaching students today requires more than polished campaigns. It requires relevance, speed, and content that feels like it comes from campus, not corporate.

That’s where Follett’s Student Marketing Directors (SMDs) come in. Across 20 universities, students create and publish content designed to connect with their peers. The program was already strong, but behind the scenes, managing and measuring performance was becoming unsustainable.

With a growing network of student creators and dozens of accounts to support, Follett needed a better way to maintain brand consistency while keeping content authentic and local. Emplifi helped the team transform student-led social into a scalable program, complete with centralized reporting, streamlined approvals, and clear proof of performance.

Scaling student-led content without centralized visibility

Managing social media across dozens of universities meant the team was constantly juggling accounts, spreadsheets, and manual reporting. Without a centralized platform, performance tracking required logging into individual handles one by one, then manually compiling results.

“I really didn’t have any visibility into how the program was doing unless I was going to spend countless hours every single week logging into every single handle and doing the manual math.” -Kelso Imboden-Brown, Senior Social Media Manager of Strategy Operations at Follett Higher Education.

The time spent on reporting pulled focus away from strategy and program growth. And because native social platforms only offered limited historical data, it was difficult to compare results year over year — a critical need for a business shaped by the seasonal cycles of the academic calendar.

Emplifi as the Intelligent Copilot

When Follett adopted Emplifi, it quickly became the central hub for strategy, social media publishing, and reporting across the entire program. Custom dashboards became the backbone of their operations, giving Kelso a clear view of how individual schools, from NYU to Virginia Tech, were performing year over year.

Instead of logging into separate accounts and rebuilding spreadsheets each week, the team now has unified visibility in one workspace. Students can track their own performance in real time, gaining hands-on experience with a professional-grade tool while contributing to measurable brand growth.

With Emplifi’s unified analytics, the team can filter by top-performing posts to understand exactly what resonates, whether it’s meme-driven content, campus trends, or brand ambassador videos. Insights that once took hours to compile are now available in minutes.

Proving that authentic student content outperforms traditional ads

With manual reporting dramatically reduced, the team gained the freedom to focus on performance and creative experimentation. The data made one thing clear: authentic, student-led content consistently outperformed traditional studio ads and paid campaigns.

“This organic student-led content is the best content we have as a company. And I will advocate and die on that hill if I have to,” said Kelso.

“We have data to prove it… what’s performing the best is student-led.”

The ability to deliver consistent, real-time reporting also strengthened executive visibility. Leadership now receives clear performance insights week over week and year over year, reinforcing the program’s value across the organization.

A scalable model for digital-first campus engagement

Today, Follett operates a high-performing, student-powered social program built on visibility, efficiency, and measurable impact. What was once a spreadsheet-heavy process has become a streamlined system that supports both brand growth and student development.

“Most of our SMDs have never used a social media management tool before… we’re talking about providing real-world experience… they can put this on their resume and their portfolio,” said Kelso.

By combining authentic campus storytelling with unified analytics and streamlined workflows, Follett Higher Education has created a scalable growth engine, one that strengthens bookstore traffic, builds campus loyalty, and prepares the next generation of marketers.