Education New Zealand has seen a surge in Brazilian traffic to its website after two of Brazil’s most influential bloggers toured New Zealand in June to promote it as a study destination.
The Jovem Nerds (or ‘Young Nerds’) travel to a new part of the world every semester, giving their large youth audience in Brazil a taste of local “nerd culture”. During their latest trip they explored New Zealand’s English language sector and tourist attractions, communicating their thoughts via a blog, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.
Brazil is the seventh-largest source of international students to New Zealand
ENZ said that two videos published on Youtube had received more than 250,000 views collectively and that five videos would be published in total. ENZ’s student website also saw a 125% increase in Brazilian traffic in June, with English language schools featured in the videos also seeing a rise.
“One school received their usual monthly traffic in one day,” claimed ENZ in a statement. It said it now wanted to identify key opinion leaders in other priority markets to run more awareness-raising campaigns.
New Zealand isn’t the first country to use bloggers to promote its education. In May 2012, the London Universities International Partnership invited high profile Chinese bloggers to publicise London as study destination on Weibo and QQ. Their followers were said to number 20 million.
Brazil is the seventh-largest source of international students to New Zealand, with 3,0oo fee-paying students attending courses in the country in 2011.
