Who’s saying what on higher education social media?
Talk of COVID-19 has dominated much of the online discourse across higher education, like every other sector over the past 18 months. But as the world emerges from the depths of the pandemic, conversations have shifted.
In collaboration with consumer intelligence experts Brandwatch for Education, we’ve created The State of the Higher Education Social Media Marketing Profession in 2021 report.
For the report, we interviewed and surveyed higher education social media marketing professionals across the UK and gathered insights from Brandwatch for Education.
Check out the full report: The State of the Higher Education Social Media Marketing Profession
The hottest topics in higher education
Conversations about COVID-19 have taken a dive of 54% in the last 180 days compared to the previous 180 days, and with that, talk of death has dropped by 45%.
Brandwatch Education insights revealed an increase in conversations around social issues such as racism (up 84%), protests & boycotts (up 68%), and crimes & arrests (up 41%).
Discussions among students of topics such as mental health and diversity have risen 53% and 41% respectively in the last 365 days compared to the previous period.
What higher education audiences want to know
Higher ed social media professionals shared that the questions they’re asked most frequently on university social media channels are related to admissions and current student information.
Questions about scholarships were also high on the list. Due to the volume and frequency of these questions, it’s been important for some institutions to develop strategies to manage them.
Emma Gilmartin, head of social media and student communications at the University of Glasgow explains her team’s approach, “to answer questions about scholarships, we set up automated responses signposting people to the most relevant source of information on a different channel. We simply don’t have the resource to respond manually.”
Although talk of COVID-19 broadly has dropped, in the build-up to welcome weeks, questions about COVID rules, quarantining and lateral flow tests were all in the mix.
Further reading
Learn about the strategies different social teams implemented to manage FAQs and other messages in their respective institutions.
Check out our full report The State of the Higher Education Social Media Marketing Profession to find out more about higher education social media discussions.
