School is back in session! Lecture halls are filled, textbooks are open, and campus activities are in full swing.
Now that recruitment season has ended, post-secondary institutions face a new challenge of keeping students engaged. First, we shared our insights on using video for post-secondary recruitment, and now we’ll share more on how to use video for student engagement.
What is Student Engagement?
Student engagement refers to all the actions students take to interact with your school, both online and off, including on websites, social media, emails and more.
Engagement is essential to a marketing strategy because it helps build stronger relationships with your audience. Students who engage with your school online will likely have positive experiences with your institution and feel a sense of loyalty and trust.
How Can Video Help Student Engagement?
Prioritizing video in your marketing strategy is a proven way to enhance engagement. Why? Because video is inherently more engaging than any other type of content.
People are twice as likely to share videos with friends than other content like blogs or articles. Video also keeps people’s attention longer. 82% of marketers say video has helped them increase dwell time. Video simplifies information and showcases authentic brand personality. 94% of marketers say video has helped them improve their understanding of products or services.
For students on the go, having access to easy-to-understand info they can watch in between classes or on their commute is a huge bonus.
Ultimately video helps boost student engagement because it resonates.
When used strategically, video can help your school boost student engagement on campus. Let’s explore 4 student engagement strategies you can use today to see your engagement skyrocket.
Here are 4 Easy Ways to Boost Engagement on Campus With Video:
1. Create Videos that Are Captivating & Informative
The first step to engaging students is to attract their attention with entertaining and helpful content. To do that, start by creating the type of videos your students will be interested in. Go for the fun stuff happening on campus, like upcoming events, activities and sports games.
To get your students to watch the entire video, you need to hook their interest immediately. According to HubSpot, users spend an average of 54 seconds on a website, so it’s your job to grab their attention within the first 10-20 seconds or less.
You can also use video to share important information on campus, like announcements and notices. Or use Video Answers to record answers to common questions. For example, answer questions new students are most likely to ask.
To get the most out of your videos, keep them short, direct, appealing and relevant to your students. Doing so will increase the chances of capturing their attention and their interest.
2. Make Videos Easy to Find
Your videos are meant to be watched, so make it easy for students to find them on your website. Post videos in plain sight, like your homepage or where it makes sense to find them. If you record a video answering common questions, post them to your FAQ page. If you record a video about program requirements, post them to the program page.
You should also create an internal linking strategy that directs users to your videos within your website. Finally, optimize your videos with video SEO to help get your content in front of the right eyes. When students can find videos easily, there’s a greater chance they’ll click on them, watch them and engage with them.
3. Optimize Videos to Be Mobile-friendly
In today’s world, more people are watching more videos on their smartphones. A whopping 75% of all video views come from mobile devices. This is especially true for younger, digital-savvy students that have little time on their hands. So, making your website videos mobile friendly is a key to boosting engagement with the content.
After all, people with poor experiences on a website will likely leave the page altogether. According to a report, nearly 8 out of 10 people would stop engaging with content that doesn’t display well on their devices. If students have a hard time accessing a video because it’s the wrong size for their screen, chances are they’re not going to watch it, let alone engage with it.
4. Repurpose Videos on Social Media
To have your students engage with your school, you need to put your content where they’re going to see it, which is on social media. Repurpose videos on your website and share them on Instagram as Reels or stories or use them as TikTok videos. Repurposing content can save you time creating new videos and help build a larger community on new platforms.
Keep up with the latest social media trends like viral TikTok sounds or memes. Use proven engagement strategies to have your social media followers interact with your content. For example, posts videos in stories and create polls or questions for followers to respond to. When you invite students to participate, there’s a greater chance they will!
Boost Student Engagement with StoryTap
Creating engaging and entertaining video content doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. StoryTap’s video platform makes it easy to produce hundreds or even thousands of videos from real people, like your staff or students. Our video technology is simple to use and optimized for engagement. Seamlessly embed videos on your website and repurpose content directly to your social media from the StoryTap platform.
Chat with our team today to learn how our data-driven videos can help you boost student engagement on campus!
For more video marketing insights, check out our latest blogs: produce UGC with email, 3 ways to provide an excellent customer experience in banking, & why all eCommerce brands should leverage mobile video marketing.