Educators seeking to boost their enrolment numbers must use current students to create engaging, interesting and insightful content, according to a report from The Access Platform.
By collaborating, both students and universities can benefit. While universities will see a rise in interest from prospective students, ambassadors gain from added experience, the opportunity to earn money while learning, and a chance to play a great part in their university community, the paper explained.
“Content created by student ambassadors tends to get the most engagement and most positive response”
Of those ambassadors surveyed, 50% said the feeling that they were making a difference to the life choices of other was their main motivation.
All the universities in The Access Platform‘s findings noted that they paid their student ambassadors – the average hourly wage being £9.60.
“Payment is a sign that the work a student has created is valued and is a suitable reward for their time and efforts,” TAP’s head of community and content, and author of the report Dave Musson said.
Additionally, 81% of the 11 universities in the UK, Ireland and the US surveyed said they offered training to their student ambassadors, which may help when they seek future employment.
According to Musson, universities should be harnessing their students more in their marketing channels.
“When you look at the incredible content you get from working with students, the experience and CV moments running such schemes can give your students and the value such content adds to your digital offering, it’s difficult to understand why every university doesn’t work with student content creators,” he explained.
“Students are [universities’] most powerful asset – why not do all you can to harness their creativity and energy, and transfer that to your marketing channels?”
On average, each university had 14 content creators, with one having 228 ambassadors if one-off guest bloggers were taken into account.
“Different content creators will have their own style, so having a group of them contributing to your feed will keep it fresh, varied and interesting,” Musson noted.
“While we didn’t cover the point around engagement in our survey, we know from speaking to colleagues and peers in the sector that, more often than not, content created by student ambassadors or student content creators tends to get the most engagement and most positive response.
“It’s not surprising really; student-created content is authentic, engaging and incredibly high value.”
