Students as content creators: 5 things we’ve learned
For the past few months, we’ve been working hard to understand how universities are working with student content creators to supercharge their peer recruitment. Now, the results are in and we’re delighted to launch our brand new research white paper!
In our paper - which you can download for free below - you’ll learn how a bunch of universities from the UK, Ireland and the USA are working with student content creators, you’ll discover tips for making your own Student Ambassador schemes a roaring success and you’ll get to read not one, but two terrific case studies.
Not bad, right?
To mark the launch of our new white paper, we wanted to pick our top five standouts from our research. So, without further ado…
Doing it for the ‘Gram
When it comes to finding out *where* all that juicy, student-created content is being shared, we weren’t overly surprised to learn that Instagram came top. After all, you should be where audiences are, right?
Here’s the top destinations for student-created content:
- 1. Instagram
- 2. Facebook
- 3. Specific student blogs
- 4. Twitter
- 5. Snapchat
In a nice bit of symmetry, Instagram takeovers were also noted as the most popular type of student-created content in our survey, followed by vlogs and photography - most often with a focus on student experience.
Top training
We were delighted to find that 81% of the universities we surveyed provide their Student Ambassadors with some form of training, which is massively important if you’re hiring people to create content for your official channels.
This training typically ranged from evaluating other universities’ channels and discussing brand guidelines, to crash courses in video editing and coding - all skills that are not only useful for your Ambassadors, but that look grand on their CV too.
Not just about money
It turns out Student Ambassadors apply for such roles for reasons other than money.
Sure, being able to earn some extra cash is a motivating factor. But, it’s not the only one. Student Ambassadors also do it to make a difference, to get more involved in their campus community and to gain skills and experience that can go on their CV and that they can talk about in job interviews.
Shameless plug, this is exactly why we built the career reference feature into our awesome platform - you should chat to us about it some time.
Money talks
Speaking of money, we found that the average pay for Student Ambassadors - based on our survey - is £9.62 an hour. That’s about US$11.62 or AUS$17.22 an hour.
We were also delighted to find that 100% of the universities we surveyed paid their Student Ambassadors for the work they do, although we know this isn’t necessarily true of the whole sector.
What can you do?
Our report is packed full of great advice about running a successful Student Ambassador scheme and having your students create amazing content to help level up your peer recruitment efforts. But, if you wanted a trio of top tips for supporting your Student Ambassadors, we’d have to say…
- 1. Be aware of where students excel, and where they need help
- 2. Acknowledge their hard work and treat them as an extension of your team, as opposed to an external, part-time body of employees
- 3. For students, a reference is a really valuable and tangible takeaway from being an ambassador, as it will help them in their future careers. Give them projects they can develop themselves and then talk about in future job interviews!
Download our report
The above is just a fraction of what’s in our white paper - hit the button below to download the full 28 pages of excellence!
