This project analyzed Elon University Football's Instagram and X (Twitter) accounts over the 2025 season, looking at 875 total posts and 514 manually logged comments. The goal was to figure out what actually drives engagement — and the main finding was that it's not just the platform or the content type on their own, but the combination of the two. Instagram video content outperformed everything else by a wide margin, and the data showed that this is because video and Instagram's design reinforce each other in a way neither can achieve alone. The project used t-tests, ANOVA, regression, and a custom sentiment scoring system to support those conclusions, and wrapped up with practical recommendations for how Elon Football should approach its content strategy going forward
This study examines whether in-venue advertising at Elon University basketball games builds measurable brand awareness among undergraduate students, testing aided and unaided recall of four local advertisers across three groups divided by game attendance frequency. The results find no consistent evidence that advertised brands outperformed non-advertised competitors or that higher attendance correlated with higher awareness, with one non-advertised auto repair shop actually outperforming its advertised counterpart. Drawing on Media Richness Theory and sports sponsorship literature, the study concludes that advertising presence alone does not guarantee awareness gains, and that format richness, exposure frequency, and audience life-stage are likely as important as placement itself.
