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NCUK (Northern Consortium of UK Universities)

Grabbing the attention of international students with user-generated content

About NCUK

The NCUK (Northern Consortium of UK Universities) is an organisation that enables international students to study at one of their global partner institutions.

Through NCUK, international students can get qualifications and take part in programmes to prepare for entry into NCUK partner universities.

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121% increase in the amount of content posts published

The challenge

For NCUK, it’s very important to produce a consistent flow of authentic-looking content to engage prospective students: it gives their channels a vibrant feel, dynamic feel, that grabs the attention of young learners looking to study abroad.

And with every dream of finding the perfect university come many, many questions that need to be answered to ease concerns, drive decisions and get prospects excited about studying at one of NCUK’s partner institutions. The Consortium was looking for a solution that would make all this easier and faster.

The experience

Embedding student ambassadors into student recruitment is so much more than just peer-to-peer conversations: it’s about sharing content and information that lets prospects picture themselves at your institution. And for this, nothing is more effective than content created by current students. 

Research backs this up: social campaigns that incorporate user-generated content (UCG) see a 50% lift in engagement, 75% of people think UGC makes content more authentic, and 35% of Gen-Z think that UGC will have more credibility than traditional content created by a company or independent source. 

In short: user-generated content is powerful and important, something that NCUK believed too.

What they liked about The Ambassador Platform is that the content feature makes it really easy to commission, collect, and publish user-generated content across their Feed and their social media

 

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Instant content

It's really easy to commission content from your student ambassadors, collect it in the Admin Dashboard and pick out the best pieces for use elsewhere (without having to hand over social media passwords to students!)

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Publish and download

You admins can publish on the Feed AND download content with one single click - easy!

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Repurpose, repurpose, repurpose

Share and re-use your user-generated content across your social media, whether it's a tweet, an Instagram story, or a longer video for YouTube or your website.

The experience

The NCUK team got quickly up to speed and became experts in repurposing content created by their ambassadors across their digital channels, to give them a more authentic, student-focused feel.

They also mastered using their student-generated content to drive traffic back to their Feed by linking their ambassador profiles, starting more of those valuable peer-to-peer conversations.

Results

User-generated content via The Ambassador Platforms was a game-changer for NCUKs, delivering:

  • A 121% increase in the number of content posts published quarterly.
  • A 429% increase in the amount of FAQs answered quarterly.
  • A 460% increase in FAQ views by prospects during the first three months of the coronavirus pandemic, compared to before the pandemic began.

"The Ambassador Platform allows us to harness the power of our ambassadors to inspire and inform the next generation of students. It also gives our students a great source of peer-to-peer advice at this current time of uncertainty."

 

Dawn Hayes
Head of Marketing
NCUK

See for yourself

Take a look at some examples of user-generated content created and repurposed across NCUK’s channels, like turning introductory videos created by their ambassadors into engaging Instagram Story.

 

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They also shared uplifting video messages from their ambassadors across social media during the coronavirus pandemic, notably on Twitter and Instagram, and crowdsourced videos of NCUK ambassadors talking about their favourite aspect of university life:

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NCUK’s admins also stitched together videos created on the platform by their ambassadors into a longer film that not only sits on their YouTube channel but also features on the home page of their website:

As well as using content groups to commission and collect their user-generated content, NCUK  used the feature as an effective communications channel to stay in touch with their ambassadors, clarify requests, give feedback, and thank them for their hard work.

Does your university need some help in boosting their content strategy? Chat with the team today.

Get a free consultation