Higher Education

Enhancing the student experience with social media content

Once campaigns were over, using Hootsuite’s analytics tools, the University was able to identify what worked well, and what didn’t. The data that was provided gave the University the learnings it needed to understand its student base far better than before. In fact, the insights helped the University personalise its content for each platform based on how students were interacting with it. For example, on Twitter, students looked for the latest news and links to other content such as scholarships. For Facebook, students used the platform as a community focused channel to interact with one another. On Instagram, students were more keen on authentic content of what life at the University was truly like.

In addition, Hootsuite’s analytics highlighted to the social team that video content was very successful, as it generated engagement with 197,000 users. With clear metrics on how videos were performing online, the team pulled a fully customisable report through Hootsuite to deliver to the senior executives. Equipped with this insight, the team was able to secure further investment in the digital department from the board, and gained sign-off to hire a full-time videographer to deliver content.

As well as pulling relevant insights, Hootsuite’s integration with platforms such as Talkwalker are invaluable to the University of St Andrews. With Talkwalker, a social listening tool, the University now keeps track of student conversations to ensure its content is reflective of what students are interested in at that moment in time.This was particularly useful when last year, a student went missing. The University could track conversations, key words and sentiment to monitor what was being said, not only help find the person that was missing, but also manage any concerns other students had during this stressful time. Being able to care for students, and cater content based on the sentiment of what people are saying online, has helped the University put the interests of its students first at key moments in time.

The University of St Andrews has been able to refresh its social media strategy with Hootsuite, ensuring it interacts with students in a meaningful way. From increasing engagement across its channels, improving collaboration with departments and reporting results effectively to drive further investment in digital initiatives, the University of St Andrews has been able to enhance the student experience.

With regards to specific campaigns, the University of St Andrews has propelled the success of its social media interaction during Graduation significantly. It generated 90 new followers on Twitter, 205 new fans on Facebook and 12,000 likes on Instagram. This level of engagement has been driven by a strong understanding through Hootsuite’s analytics of what users are interested in seeing on each social network.

Longer term, the University of St Andrews will undergo a huge scale website refresh project which will include an overhaul of its social media profiles. As part of this, the University sees Hootsuite as an integral tool in this journey, ensuring that all future on-boarding is done through the platform. The initiative will ensure all departments and schools from across the University are using Hootsuite as a central platform for broadcasting content with students. This will enable greater levels of collaboration and standardise content across the board, to ensure students are experiencing consistent and relevant approach from all areas of the institution.