September 14, 2026 · Blake Mischley
Instagram Lets You Add Tagged Posts to Your Grid & Meta Launches Muse | Reach Report No. 26
September 14th, 2026 | The Weekly Reach Report | Tagged posts can now live on your own grid, Meta ships a free AI agent, and TikTok publishing goes live in Reach.
Good morning everyone!
Welcome back to the Reach Report.
This week is all about who your content belongs to once it leaves your hands. Instagram started rolling out the ability to add posts you are tagged in to your own grid, so the student and alumni content your campus already earns can live on your profile without a repost. And Meta launched Muse, a free AI agent that reaches into the posts people save.
Let's dive in!
What’s New In Social Media
Instagram Lets You Add Tagged Posts to Your Own Grid
Instagram began rolling out the ability to add tagged posts to your grid on September 10. You can now add a post you are tagged in directly to your main profile grid, pulled in from the tag notification in your DMs, from the post itself, or from your Tagged tab. The original stays where it is, nothing duplicates, and you can remove it from your profile without affecting the Tagged tab. Content can live on your main grid while the credit stays with whoever made it.
Meta Releases Muse: Free Personal AI Agent
Meta launched Muse on September 8, a free personal AI agent that runs as a standalone app and inside Meta's existing products. Two days later it was the second most downloaded app in the United States. The agent framing is not the interesting part. Look at the example Meta led with. Muse can take a recipe reel someone saved on Instagram and turn it into a grocery list. Meta is wiring AI through its products and pointing it at the content already sitting on them. Your Instagram posts stop being something that only competes for a slot in the feed and start being raw material an assistant draws on later. Publishing on Meta surfaces just got more valuable.
What’s New Across Higher Ed
Public Perceptions About Value The Most Pressing Issues for Higher Education (ACE Pulse Survey)
The American Council on Education published its Fall 2026 Pulse Point Survey on September 11, covering 328 senior leaders including 109 presidents. Public perception of the value of college was named the most pressing issue facing the sector at 61 percent. Only 39 percent said the same about their own institution, which is its own kind of tell. Perception of value is not built by trade press anymore. It is built on the platforms your team runs, in front of students, parents, and neighbors who will never read a higher ed publication.
Weekly Higher Ed Social Snapshot
Here's how higher ed accounts performed this past week. Averages across the board, who grew fastest, who got the most engagement, and the posts that pulled the biggest numbers.
Weekly Social Media Benchmark Averages
How the average higher ed account performed over the past 7 days on each platform.
| Metric | TikTok | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| % Follower Growth | +0.29% | +0.06% | +0.70% |
| Engagement Rate | 2.0% | 0.3% | 6.4% |
| Posts Made | 5.2 | 6.1 | 2.2 |
Top Growers This Week
The accounts that gained the most followers over the past 7 days, ranked by % follower growth.
| TikTok | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. @newmanuniversity +6.6% +303 followers | 1. @TheCitadel +5.9% +4,447 followers | 1. @uofmemphis +15.4% +1,800 followers |
| 2. @holyfamilyu +4.3% +302 followers | 2. @Morehouse1867 +4.4% +7,289 followers | 2. @sacstate +13.5% +937 followers |
| 3. @redeemer_u +3.1% +244 followers | 3. @HolyFamilyUniversity +3.1% +294 followers | 3. @nwnazarene +9.0% +124 followers |
Top Engagers This Week
The accounts whose posts from the past 7 days earned the highest average engagement rate — engagements (likes, comments, shares) on a post as a % of followers, averaged across the week’s posts. Minimum 3 posts.
| TikTok | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. @sarahlawrencecollege 71.8% 35,472 engagements | 1. @HolyFamilyUniversity 14.2% 5,554 engagements | 1. @sacstate 82.3% 32,095 engagements |
| 2. @holyfamilyu 61.5% 17,969 engagements | 2. @WashingtonAdventistUniversity 6.2% 2,973 engagements | 2. @clarkatlanta1988 60.0% 21,778 engagements |
| 3. @provcollege 40.9% 106,509 engagements | 3. @westernmichu 4.1% 66,704 engagements | 3. @kcartinstitute 38.7% 47,006 engagements |
Top Instagram Posts This Week by Engagement Rate
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Top Facebook Posts This Week by Engagement Rate
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Top TikTok Posts This Week by Engagement Rate
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Trending Hashtags in Higher Ed
The 25th anniversary of September 11 shaped nearly every feed this week — campuses posted memorial stair climbs, flag installations and remembrance ceremonies.
| 1. #neverforget | ▲ 6,100% |
| 2. #patriotday | ▲ 2,600% |
| 3. #911remembrance | ▲ 1,600% |
Blake’s Bookmarks
A few posts that stopped my scroll this week and why I think they worked.
 | Influencer CollaborationThis is the second time I have seen this type of collaboration, so I might need to do a deep dive on them. This influencer is known for walking into a business and screaming its slogan inside the place. I am curious whether we start seeing more universities promoted this way. |
Local Restaurant Owner - Alum FeatureIf you have an alum running a business near campus, this is a win three times over. You highlight the alum, you bring awareness to a local business, and you make the kind of content your community actually wants to see. |  |
 | Things To-Do CarouselA very simple and very effective post highlighting resources for students. It worked so well that students were asking in the comments why none of this was covered at orientation. To me that is a huge win. |
What’s New At Reach
TikTok is Live!
You can now connect TikTok accounts and publish directly from Reach. If you already connected an TikTok account, you may need to disconnect and reconnect it to get the updated permissions.
MeetYourClass Launched Annual Scholarship!
Every year we give away scholarships to students. To enter, students complete a brief survey that fuels our annual college decision playbook, and we are already excited about the questions they are asking this year. If you know any current college students, or freshmen who just got to campus, feel free to pass it along.
That's it for this week.
I want to hear what you thought. What was actually useful, what you skipped, what you'd want more of. If there's a section missing, a metric you'd rather see, or a post you think belongs in Blake's Bookmarks, send it over. Just hit reply, I read all of it.
And if something in here was useful, forward it to whoever on your team needs it.
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Until next time.
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