Communicating during a pandemic - the best university COVID comms

This article is part of our education marketing content series, we interviewed marketing and communications leaders from across higher and further education. We asked what they’ve learnt in 2020, and what they’re planning for the future. The series is packed with insights, top-tips, and their reflections on an unprecedented time.

The pandemic has borne some incredible examples of great education marketing and comms, as well as some reckless missteps, and good recoveries.  

We spoke to education marketers about their favourite stand-out examples of great COVID comms and marketing (and the not so good ones) in the UK and internationally. And we asked what makes these examples so good?

What makes great COVID comms?

Some of the best examples of marketing and comms throughout the pandemic have several things in common. Lizzie Burrows, interim director of marketing, student recruitment and admissions at the University of Surrey, explains: “universities that have been authentic, empathetic and importantly human in their approach, whilst being clear on the rules that need to be followed have seen the most success in their engagement.”

Sally Steadman, director of learner recruitment and marketing at the RNN Group, highlights the positive contributions of institutions to communities as the most effective COVID comms.  As she says, “good comms are those that share the stories of people making great contributions. The stories of people being innovative and quick-thinking, supporting the NHS or raising funds. Universities doing research and getting testing centres set up and FE institutions creating PPE for care homes in the local community and supporting food banks. They’re the comms that share how we’ve all pulled together.” 

Cultural differences

Social intelligence organisation Brandwatch analysed 1000s of university social posts for the range of emotions conveyed by the posts. They found significant differences between UK and US institutions. “You will see below that the emotional breakdown of owned content from universities is very different in the US compared to the UK, with the UK having a much larger percentage of fear.”

“When looking at the top owned posts for US and UK universities, you can see where this difference comes from. In the UK, top owned posts are straight forward and provide factual information about the ever-changing situation. Comparatively, the US top owned posts share optimistic updates on ways the schools are working to stop the virus, as well as reassure students who are applying.”

There have been plenty of examples of fantastic communication, here are a few of the stand-out favourites from overseas and home. 

The international view:

Australia 

Australia’s education marketing is regarded by many as the industry gold standard. They are, as Richard Shepherd, marketing manager at Staffordshire University puts it: “the crème de la crème of HE marketing”

Mark Garratt, interim director of marketing, recruitment and international at Swansea University says, “Australian university communications are very impressive anyway. But the key thing about their marketing and comms during the pandemic has been the connection between government policy and universities. The Australian government and Australian universities are in sync. That’s enabled them to have a consistent message and share it with the world.”

Europe

Angela Sexton, head of marketing innovation and development, University of London, has highlighted the University of Trieste in Italy: “the graduation was done via Skype during the Italian lockdown. And it was a success! They had all these amazing pictures of students graduating. Some are wearing pyjamas, and others, the whole regalia.” 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B96WS7CF6nS/ 

Another standout example for Angela was a European university that managed to successfully organise a virtual open day within just a week. She explains: “It’s a significant challenge, getting all your academics onboard and scheduled in.”

America

The ‘protect our herd’ campaign was a favourite of Lizzie Burrows, “the University of Colorado has a buffalo mascot and they came up with the ‘protect the herd’ campaign. They talk about all being in it together and use hashtags to support one another. I feel it united everyone and showed that they’re all working to overcome the challenge.”  

https://www.colorado.edu/protect-our-herd/ 

Homegrown COVID comms

University of Glasgow

Winners of the THE University of the Year award, and the Best Use of Content, Social or Digital at the Heist Awards, the University of Glasgow, were cited as an example of consistently producing great COVID comms by their counterparts. This was entirely anticipated by sector colleagues such as Emma Leech, director of marketing and communications at Nottingham Trent University who says, “I think Glasgow always does a good job.”

Mark cited Glasgow as an example of a great recovery, he explains, “when Glasgow messed up a bit, they were quick to give students back one month’s rent.” 

One of the stand-out pieces of comms from Glasgow came at the beginning of the spring/summer lockdown. Angela explains, “they were really effective on Twitter on that first weekend and they thought to answer all the questions that people had. They also sent out a direct message to people in the sector to say good luck to everyone and acknowledging that it's a hard time for everyone trying to deal with the challenging situation, which was a nice touch.”

Edge Hill University 

Against a backdrop of student complaints on social media about appalling supplies provided by some universities, institutions that provided students with decent care packages really stood out. 

Emma explains: “Edge Hill University did a cracking job by showing off their veggie boxes and care packages. They pushed back against the institutions that were allegedly more prestigious but gave students jam sandwiches and an apple in care packages.”

Loughborough University

Loughborough University was noted as one of the best examples of student comms. Angela says, “Loughborough have worked on their student comms for a long time and were in a great position to create great COVID comms.” 

Lizzie notes, “Loughborough’s use of Twitter has been really valuable. Richard Taylor their COO has been very direct on his social and it shows that comms don’t always have to come from the corporate social accounts. Having somebody speak from a leadership position is very valuable.”

Self-defeating comms

Some institutions have taken significant missteps. The negative and poor comms by individual institutions have a wider impact, Mark explains that poor comms by one particular university, “it’s affected us [the sector] all. And people’s perspective of us in terms of international student recruitment.”

Other institutions have quickly removed “wince-worthy” social media posts. And made “own goals.” At best these instances have been embarrassing, at worst they’ve scarred reputations of individual institutions and more broadly, the sector. 

From the top down

We’ve seen some incredible examples of marketing and comms throughout the pandemic that have communicated messages clearly, personally with authenticity and empathy. 

It’s clear that the quality of an institution’s marketing and comms flows from leadership. Leaders who are empathetic and authentic in their decision making lay the foundations for marketing and comms that hit the mark. We’ve witnessed the car crash comms and fallout of leaders who fail. 

Emma sums it up: “I would say kudos to every university in the country for trying hard in very difficult circumstances. But a lot of it also comes down to leadership if you've got someone who's going off-piste and isn't listening to the comms specialists, that's not a great position to be in.” 

If you’d like a chat about your university communications and how to tell your stories effectively, get in touch.