The Higher Ed Guide to Creating Evergreen Social Media Content: What Analyzing 60,000 Posts Reveal

For the past 12 months we have been tracking 60,000 college posts across Instagram and TikTok to see which content stays evergreen and how videos keep growing after they are posted.

MeetYourClass is social media infrastructure for institutions. Reach is our social media management and intelligence platform, and alongside it we run peer to peer Instagram communities for campuses across the country.

Reach takes a snapshot of every college post on day 1, day 7 and day 30. Then it stops looking. So does almost every social team we know. A video goes up, someone checks it the next morning and again at the end of the week, and by the time it is a month old nobody has opened its analytics since.

That is the part of short form video nobody audits. There is plenty written about what goes viral in the first 48 hours. There is almost nothing written about what happens to a college video in month three, or month nine, after everyone has stopped watching the numbers.

It matters more every year. Students search TikTok and Instagram the way they used to search Google, and AI tools increasingly pull answers from social media too. A dorm tour or a financial aid explainer can keep showing up for a prospective student long after the week it was posted. For a college, evergreen content is part of social media strategy now, as much as what goes viral this week. The question is not only what will get views today. It is what will still be getting views a year from now.

So we went and measured it. We took 60,000 videos posted by the main accounts of 2,076 colleges between October 2025 and September 2026, 30,000 on TikTok and 30,000 Instagram Reels, and checked every one of them again in late October. Then we compared each video's plays today with its plays at day 1, day 7 and day 30.

What follows is meant as a guide. The first half is what the data shows, which is the benchmark nobody has had. The second half is how we would use it, what to make, when to post it and how to make it.

What 60,000 College Videos Show

How long college TikToks and Reels keep getting plays

Medians. Shares are of each video's plays today. TikToks 3 to 11 months old, Reels 5 to 11 months old.

A Reel gets more than two thirds of its plays on the day it goes up and 96% by the end of the month. After that the line goes nearly flat. Ten months later it has about 6% more than it had at day 30.

A TikTok gets 40% of its plays on day one and 84% by day 30. Then it keeps climbing. The median college TikTok adds about 20% on top of its day 30 number over the following months, about five times what a Reel adds.

Likes and comments tell a quieter version of the same story. Both platforms have almost all their engagement by day 30. The late plays on TikTok mostly come from people watching, not engaging, which is what search traffic looks like. Someone looks up what the dorms are like, watches, and moves on.

Instagram behaves like a feed. TikTok behaves more like a library.

What college TikTok content stays evergreen

We grouped every TikTok by content type and compared each video with videos of the same age from the same school. A content type only ranks high when it outgrows its own school's other videos, not because it came from a bigger account.

The top of that list reads like a prospective student's search history. What the rooms look like. What campus looks like. What a day there is like. How to pay for it. What you can study.

The bottom of the list is content built for a moment. An exams week video is relatable for exactly one week. A move in video is for the families moving in. They do their job and then the moment is over.

A note on financial aid. In Reach that category covers anything about paying for college, so scholarships, FAFSA, tuition and cost all count. Every part of it beat the typical TikTok, and scholarship videos did best at about 26% after day 30, though there are only 70 of them.

The gap looks small, a few points either side of 20%. A dorm video still grows about 70% faster after day 30 than an exams video does, and it keeps that pace for as long as it stays up.

Which college videos start fast and which keep going

Getting plays fast is one job. Getting plays for months is another. We compared each content type's first week plays with the same school's usual video, then set that against how much it grew after day 30.

Move in sits far out on the right. It gets 46% more plays in its first week than a school's usual video, more than any other content type, and then fades faster than almost anything else.

Look at the left side. Research, financial aid and scholarships, majors and day in the life all get a fifth to a third fewer first week plays than a school's usual video. Those are the same content types that keep growing the longest. If a team judges videos by their first week, these are the ones that look like misses, and they are the ones still working in the spring.

Dorms are the exception. A dorm video has the second best first week of any content type and keeps growing longer than all of them. If a school makes one evergreen video this year, it should probably be a dorm tour.

How TikTok videos grow over 12 months

Here is what a year looks like for the median college TikTok. In the second month after day 30 it adds about 9%. By month five it is up about 17%. By month eleven it is up 24% and still climbing slowly. Most of the late growth comes in the first few months after day 30, and then it keeps adding a little every month. The dashed line is the smooth curve that pattern follows.

Two months do not follow it. Videos three and four months old have grown more than every video from five to eight months. A video that has been up for four months is ahead of one that has been up for eight.

So we looked deeper.

The first guess was content. The three and four month old videos do lean a little more toward orientation and campus tours. But inside the same content type, they still outgrew the older videos in 18 of 20 categories. Graduation videos, athletics videos and research videos all showed the same bump.

The second guess was schools. Comparing each school only with itself, its three and four month old videos outgrew its five to eight month old ones 69% of the time.

Then we lined every video up by the month it was posted.

Three and four months ago is June and July. A TikTok posted in late June added 26% after day 30. One posted in April added 16%.

A video posted in June hits day 30 in the middle of summer, when campus accounts and their audiences are both quiet. Then August arrives. Students come back, incoming first years start looking up their new school, high school seniors start their college search, and TikTok keeps serving that June video to all of them. November and December show the same thing. Those videos hit day 30 over winter break and picked up when spring semester started.

Dorm videos go the other way, which is what convinced us. Dorm videos posted between February and May added 42% after day 30, against 27% for summer ones. Spring is when students choose housing.

The general lesson is that an old video can grow again when its audience comes back. TikTok does not stop serving a video because it is a few months old. It stops when nobody is looking for it, and it starts again when they are.

How many college TikToks keep growing after a month

Almost every college TikTok keeps growing after day 30. Only 4% stop cold. Half add between 5% and 20%, which is the quiet, reliable version of evergreen. Reels look completely different. Six in ten add less than 5%, and almost none double.

Then there is the tail. One TikTok in a hundred accounts for 56% of all the plays college TikToks added after day 30.

The biggest climb among videos TikTok does not mark as ads was a six second Lewis & Clark clip captioned Tuesday to Wednesday on our campus. It had 11,100 plays at day 30 and has 144,000 now. A UC San Diego campus video went from 2,900 to 28,800. Both kept a like rate around 15%, so whatever carried them, people were engaging with them.

You cannot plan for those. You can plan for the 20%.

Why some old TikToks suddenly spike

Every social manager has seen an old TikTok suddenly sitting at two million plays with almost no new likes.

264 of the TikToks we tracked, under 1% of them, added 10,000 or more plays after day 30 with a like rate below 1%. Organic college TikToks usually run between 3% and 15%. Those 264 videos account for 77% of all the plays TikTok added after day 30 across the whole sample.

That is what paid boosts look like, and TikTok agrees. It marks 198 of those 264 videos as ads itself. Across the whole sample TikTok marks 807 videos, under 3%, as ads. We left the boosted ones out of everything above, and none of the examples in this guide are ads. If you are comparing your content to another school's huge late number, check the like count before you check anything else.

Does Instagram Reels content stay evergreen

The 4% Reels add after day 30 is small, but it is not spread evenly. We ran the same comparison as TikTok, each Reel against Reels of the same age from the same school.

The order is almost the same as TikTok's. Campus tours, majors, dorms and financial aid lead, each adding about 5%. Holidays, exams and graduation trail. The whole spread fits inside two points, because Instagram rarely puts an old Reel back in front of new people.

The same practical content wins on both platforms. On TikTok it wins by keeping the video alive. On Instagram the video stops either way, so evergreen content needs somewhere to live that is not the feed.

What type of TikTok video stays evergreen

Content type is what a video is about. Video style is how it is filmed. We labeled the style of 27,061 college TikToks from each video's cover frame and the opening of its transcript, then ran the same comparison.

Walkthroughs and tours are the only style in the top right. They get 16% more first week plays than a school's usual TikTok and add about 27% after day 30, more than any other style. Only 3% of college TikToks are walkthroughs.

The informational styles sit on the left. Day in the life vlogs, voiceover explainers, talking to camera and text slides all start 15% to 20% below a school's usual TikTok and finish above the median, adding 21% to 23% after day 30. It is the same slow start, long run pattern as the content types.

The fast styles sit bottom right. Street interviews, event footage and skits or trends get strong first weeks and then fade, adding about 17% to 18%.

The music montage, campus clips cut to a song, is a quarter of all college TikToks and lands exactly on the median for both.

Two things we expected to matter did not. Videos where someone speaks grow the same after day 30 as videos with no speech at all, 19.8% against 19.4%. Text on the cover made no difference either. What mattered was whether the video teaches something. Videos that answer a question a student might search added 22% after day 30, against 18% for the rest.

Style still matters inside the evergreen topics. Among dorm, tour, financial aid, majors and day in the life videos only, a walkthrough added 29% after day 30. A skit on the same topics added 17%.

Do hashtags, captions and video length matter on TikTok

We checked the details social teams argue about, each compared within the same school and video age.

Hashtags do not change anything. A TikTok with none and a TikTok with six or more grow the same after day 30.

What does help is giving TikTok and the viewer more to work with. Longer captions, captions that ask a question, and longer videos all keep growing a little longer. None of these is a big effect on its own. Together they point the same way. A video that is easier to search for and has more to learn from keeps getting served.

Three examples make the point better than the chart. Union College posted a 43 second video captioned Why do engineers wear a steel ring? It went from 3,800 plays at day 30 to 26,400. The School of Visual Arts posted 3 portfolio tips for applying to art school and went from 3,800 to 22,100. Both are questions someone is going to type into a search bar long after the video went up. Pomona College captioned a campus video Pomona College without a trending audio and went from 5,200 to 23,300.

How to Make Evergreen Content for College Social Media

This half is our read on the data rather than something the data proves on its own.

What evergreen content colleges should make

Make the videos that answer what a prospective student searches. Dorm and residence hall tours, campus tours, day in the life, financial aid and scholarships, and programs and majors all kept growing longer than a school's typical video.

Start with dorms. They are the only content type that gets a strong first week and keeps growing longer than anything else. One video per residence hall is a library that will still be working next spring.

Keep making timely content. Move in, homecoming, food and orientation videos get plays fast, and that matters. Just do not expect them to still be working in March.

When to post evergreen college content

Post evergreen videos a few weeks before the people searching for them come back. The data points to three windows.

June, for the fall. Videos posted in June caught the August return of students, incoming first years and high school seniors starting their search. Programs and majors, campus tours and day in the life fit here.

November and December, for the spring. Videos posted before winter break picked up when spring semester started, which is when admitted students and families compare offers. Financial aid and scholarship explainers fit here.

February, for housing. Dorm videos posted between February and May grew the most of anything we measured, in the months students choose housing.

Summer is for the fast stuff. Move in, orientation and welcome content earn their big first weeks then.

How to make an evergreen TikTok

Film it as a walkthrough when you can. Walk through the residence hall, the lab, the dining hall, the path from the parking lot to admissions. Walkthroughs were the only style that got a strong first week and kept growing the longest, and almost nobody makes them.

When it cannot be a walkthrough, make it teach something. Explainers, day in the life videos and someone talking to camera about a real question all started slow and finished ahead. Talking alone is not the point. A video with speech grows no differently than one without unless the speech answers something.

Save skits, trends and street interviews for the first week. They do that job well and then stop.

Write the caption like the search it should answer. How big are the dorms at is a search. Move in day vibes is not.

Go a little longer. Videos over 30 seconds and captions over 25 words grew longer than short ones. Skip the hashtag count, it made no difference.

Keep dates, seasons and class years out of the videos you want to last, so a June video still makes sense in March.

How to judge evergreen content

Do not judge these videos on their first week. Research, aid and majors videos start a fifth to a third below a school's usual video and finish ahead of it. Check them again at three months.

Before you benchmark against another school's huge late number, check its like rate. Most giant late spikes are paid.

On Instagram, the feed will not carry evergreen content. A Reel has 96% of its plays by day 30. Put the videos you want students to find later in Story Highlights and pinned Reels. We wrote a whole guide on what colleges keep in their highlights, and only about one college in ten keeps a campus tour highlight.

Methodology

We selected videos from the main accounts of colleges in MeetYourClass's Reach database posted between October 2025 and September 2026. For TikTok we used 30,000 videos from 651 accounts, capped at 150 per school so a few very active accounts could not dominate. For Instagram we drew a random 30,000 Reels from 2,220 accounts, split evenly across posting months and capped at 60 per school.

Reach records every post at day 1, day 7 and day 30. We tracked all 60,000 videos again on October 26, 2026 and matched each one to those snapshots. About 1% had been deleted or made private and were dropped.

Growth after day 30 is a video's plays today divided by its plays at day 30, and figures are medians unless noted. To compare content types fairly, each video was measured against videos of the same age from the same school. First week plays are a video's plays at day 7 compared with the median day 7 plays of the same school's videos. A video can belong to more than one content type, and we ranked a content type only when it had at least 60 videos, which left out game day, mascots and faith content.

Instagram reports views and plays as separate numbers, and we compared plays with plays. Reach stored real plays for Reels whose day 30 snapshot was taken before a June 2026 change in how it records them, which covers 14,616 Reels posted between November 2025 and May 2026. Those are the Reels in every Instagram plays figure. The Instagram content ranking agrees with TikTok's at a rank correlation of 0.72.

TikToks that added 10,000 or more plays after day 30 with a like rate under 1%, or under a fifth of their own earlier like rate, were treated as likely paid boosts and excluded. Including them barely changes the rankings or the medians, which move from 19.6% to 19.9%. They would change totals, since with them included 41% of all plays happened after day 30 instead of 16%. TikTok also marks 807 videos in the sample as ads. Leaving those out too moves no figure in this guide by more than a tenth of a point. Named examples and example thumbnails were chosen only from videos TikTok does not mark as ads and whose new plays kept a normal like rate.

Video style was labeled by a small AI model from each TikTok's cover frame, the first 150 words of TikTok's own auto caption track and the caption, one style per video. It is reliable at the broad level, a walkthrough against a skit, but not perfect video by video. Whether a video has speech comes from whether TikTok generated an auto caption track for it, which 45% of college TikToks have. Content types come from Reach's post categorization. Videos posted this October are too new to measure, so homecoming and Halloween are underrepresented.

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MeetYourClass is social media infrastructure for institutions. MeetYourClass runs the peer communities campuses have on social and turns them into enrollment intent data for admissions teams. Reach is our social media management solution for research, publishing and reporting, and the source of the benchmarking behind studies like this one.

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