The Inside Story: How Project LUU Came to Life

With Welcome Week kicking off a fresh academic year, September is a buzzing month across UK universities. 

As a team that has a collective working experience of over 20 years with Student Unions, we’ve developed a knack for understanding their unique challenges and we’d begun strategising months before on pitching our services to Student Unions. 

We knew our experience gave us an edge, and we were ready to help SUs grow their online presence, ease the enormous stress that comes with Welcome Week, and, most importantly, bring their ideas to life.

As the weeks to September got closer and closer, we were more than ready to start and get to work.

Above screenshot: Our project dashboard

This is when we met Leeds University Union (LUU), one of the biggest Student Unions in the UK, ranked #3 amongst SUs in the UK by Student Crowd Awards which went onto becoming our eventual client. Our first call with Rori, the Marketing Director at LUU, set the stage for what would turn into a fantastic working relationship. During that initial conversation, we could sense her relief hearing what we had in mind. 

Student Unions are always under pressure, especially during Welcome Week to have a team that delivers quickly and creatively. Hearing what our plans were and seeing our credibility was the proof she needed to know that we had everything under control and that LUU’s Welcome Week was in good hands. It was a huge opportunity for us.

We were committed to making this Welcome Week for Leeds a huge success and we worked tirelessly to accomplish just that, working to meet and even exceed expectations from day one.  It all paid off. 

Above screenshot: Content calendar proposal draft

Our goal was to be fast, efficient, and creative - ensuring that LUU had dynamic, engaging content without needing to stress about the details. The results were massive.

In over a month, we helped LUU achieve some incredible social media wins:

• Social media followers grew from 32.3k to 34.2k—a noticeable boost in such a short time.

• Accounts reached skyrocketed by 700%—those stats speak for themselves.

• One of the reels we created with the LUU CEO racked up 40k+ views on Instagram.

• During Welcome Fair, a grid post we shared earned 900+ likes, the highest engagement they’ve had in recent times on a photo-based post.

• The reels we produced during Welcome Week averaged 15k+ views, keeping the momentum strong.

Above screenshot: Weekly report to LUU example

These numbers were the result of a team effort that went beyond the typical 9 to 5. 

We worked day and night, posting grid photos during midday events and staying up until late to cover night events, editing until the early hours, and making sure fresh content was live by 9 a.m. the next morning. Ohh the adrenaline was high!

Speed and accuracy were key to making sure LUU had engaging content to share every day of their Welcome Week. LUU’s team appreciated not only the numbers but also our ability to be flexible and work on their timeline. The client was thrilled with the results, and we were just as proud of how everything turned out. 

It was an absolute win with us boosting their followers and creating viral moments.

In the end, to us it was about more than just the social media growth, we helped take the pressure off the LUU team so they could focus on delivering a fantastic Welcome Week. 

Are we promoting hustle culture and overworking? absolutely not. After this surge of productivity, we went back to our shells and took good time to rest, recover and recuperate. Our crew's ability to go on beast mode does have a limit, but when we are ON, we like to fly and when OFF, we take advantage of every little comfort around us. Right after, we celebrated by having a hefty meal, went on a short holiday and we are back again. 

We loved every minute of it and we can’t wait for the opportunity to potentially work with LUU again in the future.

To say we had a blast would be an understatement!

LUU - thank you for trusting us with your Welcome Week content, here’s to more collaborations to come!

As a crew, this experience made us realise the massive opportunities there are for us to work with Student Unions across the UK and the need that is very much present for the support we are ready to provide. 

Above screenshot: Aftermovie draft edit

We are ready for our next challenge and to tailor ourselves to the needs and unique aspects of each Student Union. 

If you’re part of an SU looking for a creative partner who understands your challenges and can deliver results, we’d love to chat!

We want to create something extraordinary with you and ensure that your next big event is a bigger success. 

We’re ready to collaborate—are you?