”The Franco team played a valuable role in building a strong foundation and planning our complex social media program. Our organization is large, with many teams working in their own "niche" in several different locations across the state. Despite our size and complexity, Franco quickly understood how to successfully manage a social program with so many moving parts.
They also understand social platforms through and through, presenting our content in its best format and helping us creatively try new content types, like Reels. Franco's expertise and partnership have made a measurable difference in how our GME program communicates with current and potential residents and fellows.
Lauren M. UtykanskiCorewell Health Communications Specialist – Social Media
Client
Year
Deliverables
Creative
Situation
As social media continues to help brands across all industries achieve greater awareness and engagement with audiences, many healthcare organizations utilize platforms like Instagram to increase recruitment efforts.
Corewell Health’s graduate medical education (GME) program gives residents and fellows a chance to work alongside faculty and health care professionals while helping them prepare for a lifelong career in medicine. Accounting for approximately 1,500 interviews each year, GME recruitment is a large part of Corewell Health’s growth in west Michigan. After successfully piloting several resident-run Instagram accounts to help increase reach, awareness and, subsequently, resident and fellowship application growth numbers, Corewell Health connected with Franco in early 2024 to help amplify these efforts across several more accounts and more effectively position the organization as a top program of choice.
Approach
Franco coordinated with Corewell Health’s corporate social media team to develop and execute an efficient Instagram management program spanning 13 resident and fellowship pages and 20 GME content coordinators to fuel ongoing awareness efforts. We also collaborated with this team to better understand the organization’s social strategy as a whole. This defined how the newly created pages could align and build off the existing strategy.
Our day-to-day responsibility was working alongside Corewell Health’s social media team to receive Instagram photos and videos from GME content coordinators, then use that content to create engaging, platform-friendly posts to appeal to existing and prospective followers while adhering to Corewell Health brand and identity guidelines.
Tactical support included:
- Establishing an organized content collection, storage and communication process
- Upholding content quality control
- Developing Reels
- Identifying timely, relevant local Stories to repost
- Researching timely, relevant trends to share with GME content coordinators
- Thoroughly examining content from a reputation management perspective prior to posting
- Developing various observation-focused (Match Day, Research Day, etc.) and resident/fellow spotlight Canva templates to maintain brand continuity
- Launching Survey Monkey forms to streamline content generation
Since the GME content coordinators’ full-time roles ranged from residents, fellows, faculty and program coordinators, we also worked with the Corewell Health social media team to provide strategic support to showcase best practices and how to gather optimal content.
Strategic support included:
- Providing quarterly reporting and analytics
- Hosting monthly GME content coordinator meetings to discuss timely content opportunities, answer questions and exchange ideas. Each meeting was followed by a recap email for those unable to attend due to busy schedules.
- Working with primary Corewell Health client contacts to establish and maintain Instagram best practices and content ideas
- Holding individual program brainstorm calls for those interested in learning how to blend Instagram trends with Corewell values
The primary goal of the Instagram program was to appeal to Corewell Health’s ideal prospective GME recruits by vibrantly showcasing each program’s clinical training atmosphere, unique culture and what it’s like to live and be well in west Michigan – all while adhering to Corewell Health’s brand and community guidelines and ensuring each page felt authentically resident and fellow-run.
Results
Collectively, the 13 programs’ in-feed posts, Reels and original and reposted Stories achieved impressive Instagram reach and engagement metrics between March 2024 and March 2025, including:
- More than 112,100 accounts reached
- 59.7% of accounts reached were non-followers
- 12,347 total engagements
- 1,290 new followers gained
Several Reels also achieved “viral” status, including one Reel that generated:
- 1,113 likes
- 18 comments
- 818 shares
- 79.2K views
The program also reached users outside of west Michigan, including those in metro Detroit, Chicago, New York and beyond.
Subsequently, the program helped foster deeper cross-program communication and collaboration – sparking more meaningful interest and inspiration to maintain the momentum established on these channels.
