Introduction

The University of South Australia is an enterprising, inclusive university that seeks to continually improve the quality of engagement with its prospective international students. After implementing an alternative peer-to-peer technology in 2019, the University looked to augment the reach of their International Student Ambassadors, to maximize the impact of their well-established student ambassador program.

The University’s international team had been leveraging the skills, experience and knowledge of their ambassadors for years, and had effectively embedded them in their recruitment funnel, especially at the offer-to-accept conversion stage. The Ambassador Platform was both the perfect tool to bridge the insight gap and an upgrade on the technology the University utilized previously.  

The challenge

The University of South Australia had already established a connection between their ambassadors and prospective international students. The challenge was taking that engagement to the next level, and the platform’s user-generated content feature provided the perfect opportunity to do just that. Through this feature, ambassadors are able to showcase the unique Adelaide lifestyle and the true University of South Australia experience in a meaningful, authentic and relatable way. Sharing all content on social media was the natural next step; after all, 82% of all prospective students initiate their interactions with a university on social media. 

The International team wanted to be able to report on the incredible work their ambassadors were doing for them. The AI-enabled reports and insights gave them the ability and opportunity to measure all engagement along the funnel, and most importantly, ROI on their ambassador initiatives. While the prospect insights help inform the University’s recruitment and conversion strategies, the trends insights help shape their marketing messaging to include topics and themes prospective students are interested in. 

The impact