Reliable international student recruitment strategies have also evolved in the digital age. Young people are increasingly reliant on social media to learn and discover. According to Sprout’s 2025 Pulse Survey, Gen Z (today’s student applicants) are using social media as their number one search engine, ahead of traditional websites like Google and new technologies like AI.

To attract new international students, your institution’s social media presence is a crucial tool for recruitment that requires an active and strategic approach.

The role of social media in international student recruitment

Social media plays a significant role in young people’s decision-making process and that remains true in the UK’s higher education market. Sprout Social’s Pulse Survey found that 52% of Gen Z are more likely to trust information from brands and organisations on social media than they are through traditional search or AI. Universities in the UK and abroad are using their social media channels to create a wide range of content, including:

• Day in the life
• Campus tours
• Guest lectures
• Student guides and more

Choosing a university, particularly if you’re going to study abroad, is a lengthy and carefully considered process. Potential international students want to feel seen by their university of choice, while their parents want to be confident they’re making the right decision for their future. Social media content can support this decision across every step.

International student recruitment strategies for every stage of the journey

Your social content should focus on a specific stage in your prospective student’s journey. We’ve explained how your content can support students every step of the way.

Research your audience: Prioritise your international student groups

Before you start creating content, you need to understand your audience. Determine which countries you’re hoping to recruit from, and create distinct personas based on these areas. Personas should also be tailored to certain degrees and levels of study.

Feed this research into your platform choices. If you’re targeting China, you’ll need to focus your efforts on platforms like Weibo. The University of Bristol manages a Weibo account specifically for Chinese students and has over 200,000 followers.

Once you’ve created your personas, conduct further research to better understand them and the type of content they need. Use advanced tools like Sprout Social Listening and competitive analysis to better position your account, and to uncover data that can help you refine your content strategy.

Awareness: Showcase the student experience

During the awareness stage, you need to make prospective students aware that your university exists. Institutional strategies like boosting your rankings on global university lists can help, but you can also rely on social media to build an effective awareness campaign.

The most effective content types here include anything that highlights the student experience. That might include:

• Course breakdowns
• On and off campus life videos
• Spotlighting clubs and societies
• Campus tours

Focus on creating high-quality, professional content and circulating it as widely as possible to increase your reach.

Combine this with student UGC campaigns to maximize your reach and trust. By encouraging your students to also create content around university life, you can reach a wider pool of potential students and make more people aware of what you can offer.

Consideration: Highlight international student support

Once students know who you are, show them why they should consider choosing you. Content at this stage should show off your support services and the unique courses or communities you can offer international students.

Q&As and livestreams can help answer specific questions students might have at this stage. If you’re struggling to keep up with your social inbox, implement a chatbot to filter queries.

Create content that speaks specifically to international student experiences at your uni. If possible, do this through unique accounts. Here’s a great example from the University of Glasgow, who has an Instagram account for its international student support team.

Decision: Create personalised interaction

At this stage, students will have decided to apply to your university. Social content here should involve a mix of general content and direct engagement, just like with the consideration stage.

Your general content for students who’ve chosen your university should make it as simple as possible for them to apply and join your institution. Create guides to help them through the application process and inform them of what happens next.

Engagement is even more important. Carefully manage your social inbox, and reach out to any students looking to move to your city directly. Use advanced tools like Sprout’s Smart Inbox to make it easier for your applications team to manage and respond to messages, and create a simplified process for connecting with students via phone or in person after you’ve messaged them.

Onboarding: Build community

Student onboarding is the process of students moving to your university to begin their studies. This is an important part of each student’s life, so it’s essential that you’re on hand to support them.

Create content like budget guides, city life advice and student hall tours so students know what to expect when moving. Showcase your clubs or directs them to events like student fairs. You should create specific content for Freshers’ week, which is when a lot of UK students join clubs and start making friends on their course.

It’s also important to build a community for your international students. These communities make their student life easier and more enjoyable, as it can help them connect with other students and support services. Social platforms like Discord can help create a safe space for interaction. The University of Brighton manages a safe online community on Discord to help new students settle into the city.

Retention and alumni: Continuous engagement post-admission

Your social content support shouldn’t end when international students begin their first year or graduate. Create alumni groups that help you keep in touch with them after uni on networks like LinkedIn. It’s also worth using LinkedIn to retain current students, through sharing advice content and finding ways to include international students in content strategies. This has a double effect of improving retention whilst also showcasing the international student experience to prospective students.

Use these groups to share news about alumni events and to encourage new content from successful alumni students that can inspire the next generation. By leveraging your alumni network, you can create a snowball effect that keeps your social content relevant and more impactful over time.

How to differentiate international student recruitment campaigns by social network

An effective international student recruitment strategy involves choosing your platforms. Since not every social network is available in every country, tailor your decisions to the countries you’re recruiting from. This is particularly important if you’re recruiting from China, which has its own group of popular platforms, such as WeChat and RedNote (Xiaohongshu), among others.

To truly resonate on any of these channels, many institutions now leverage student influencers in the UK to create relatable, first-person content that speaks directly to the international student experience.

According to The 2025 Sprout Social Index™, Gen Z are most likely to have Instagram (89%), YouTube (84%) and TikTok (82%) profiles. These are some of the main channels you should have if you’re recruiting internationally, as they remain popular across the US, Europe, Middle East and other regions.

Instagram for international student recruitment

Instagram is an effective network for visual-driven content, which makes it excellent for showing off what unilife is like on and off campus through brand and student ambassador content. Prospective students are also likely to use Instagram as a search engine, meaning an optimised profile can get your university noticed.

Some useful approaches include:

• Embracing Reels: glimpses into campus life, etc.
• Student-led content: a day in the life of an international student
• Building community: answering questions, showcasing clubs, etc.
• Visual storytelling: quality images, cultural events, student societies, etc.

Using location tags and hashtags improves searchability and makes it clear where your university is based, which can be helpful for international users. Also take advantage of real student experiences. Look at how you can encourage current students to film POV guides or create social content about your clubs, events and the culture/activities in your city.

Here’s an example from the University of Nottingham, where one of their international students from Korea filmed a video that shares advice about moving to the city.

YouTube for international student recruitment

Alongside being the second largest search engine, YouTube is the perfect place to share longer videos about your university. Popular content types that can appeal to international students include tours (some UK universities are even experimenting with VR/AR tours on the network), as well as lectures and interviews with staff and international student alumni.

To make your videos accessible, make sure you’re always optimising them for search and including multi-language captions. If your university is trying to recruit from specific countries, consider creating a regional account with content that’s particularly relevant to students from that region.

YouTube content should focus on what sets your uni apart from others—here’s a popular welcome video from Cambridge University, which has achieved over 2.6 million views. Whilst this is a traditional tour-style piece of content, Cambridge makes it unique by showing the diversity of its university locations and world-renowned features like their rowing team facilities.

TikTok for international student recruitment

TikTok remains popular with younger generations; the largest demographic on the network is users aged 18-35. This is the typical target age group for undergraduate international students, which is why TikTok is becoming an essential place for those looking to attract students from overseas.

POV-style advice videos and trending content work particularly well. Unibuddy found that 78% of prospective students found speaking to current students helpful when choosing where to study, so creating these conversations through TikTok Q&As can help with your recruitment efforts. Make sure to work with your existing international students so you can provide these opportunities, while also creating relevant content that prospective students will find useful.

As a relatively newer network, TikTok also represents a significant growth opportunity for UK universities. Currently, only a few institutions are using it to its full advantage. Perhaps the best example is the University of Oxford, which has achieved almost 750k followers since it started focusing on TikTok a few years ago.

LinkedIn for international student recruitment

LinkedIn is an indispensable network for attracting mature students and for keeping in touch with alumni. Both LinkedIn messaging and ads can be used to promote graduate programs in specific fields, which are essential career advancement opportunities.

It’s the ideal place to share career success stories from prior students, as well as to share faculty or university awards. Take advantage of LinkedIn Groups to build a strong alumni community, who you can tap to create content alongside you in the future. It’s also possible to create networking opportunities for your students across LinkedIn with recruiters.

You can also promote events through your LinkedIn profile. Here’s an example from UCL, which hosted an exclusive alumni event for former students who’re now based in Boston or NYC.

Measuring ROI and optimising your social media for student recruitment

The only way to know for sure if you’re using social media for student recruitment effectively is to measure your results. Here are several ways you can track and optimise your performance.

Set goals and KPIs

Identify metrics that you can track to measure your success. Some common KPIs for international student recruitment include:

• Engagement rates on your posts
• Your reach
• Number of UGC posts generated
• Click-through rates (CTR)
• Website traffic
• Leads generated through downloads or sign-ups
• Started or completed applications directly from or influenced by social media

Combine these KPIs with your more recruitment goals, like the number of international students you’re looking to recruit in a given year. By combining both measurements, you can keep your social strategy aligned to wider business goals and the overall impact of your university.

Monitoring your key metrics can also help you identify social campaigns to refine or reuse. The University of Sheffield launched its overarching international student marketing strategy, “We are International”, in 2013, and continues to use its messaging today to promote inclusion and to attract new international students.

Implement link tracking

By tracking links, you can easily calculate key metrics like clicks and conversions, which show you which posts are influencing international students to engage directly with your university or even take the next step.

Use a tool like Sproutlink to create a link in bio on your social profiles. Create additional tracked links every time you’re linking to a certain page, like events pages, admissions pages, course outlines and more. By tracking these links, you can see how well your overall account is performing towards your recruitment goals.

Use a social media management tool to monitor and refine your strategies

A social media management tool makes it easy to post across all of your accounts, manage your social inbox, track the results of your campaigns and more.

By managing everyting social in one place, your team can save time on manual task and spend more headspace on launching new creative and targeted campaigns. It’ll also be easier to refine your campaigns over time by collecting historical and real-time data to compare and analyze as needed.

Several UK universities rely on these tools to support all of their social marketing efforts, including the University of Newcastle. They use Sprout Social to fuel their full funnel social marketing strategy. Here’s a recent example of how they’re continuing to create social content to recruit international students.

Connect your social data to the entire journey

Once you’re tracking social data across your international student recruitment marketing, connect it with each stage of your applicants’ journeys.

With Sprout, you can connect your social data with CRM tools like Salesforce and customer service tools like Zendesk, so you can centralise all of your data to get a full view of the international student journey. You can further transform your social data into social intelligence by integrating with Tableau, using Sprout Listening and utilizing Sprout’s AI capabilities to support deep analyses.

Connecting your data helps you understand not just the data you’ve gathered, but where it comes from, why it matters, what behaviors are being influenced and how you can adapt your socials to better meet the user demands you’ve uncovered.

Create a well-rounded international student recruitment strategy on socials

Recruiting international students through your social channels isn’t a static process. It demands a well-rounded approach and a strategy that evolves over time.

Keep your institution competitive by adapting to current trends, and making use of the latest social marketing technologies international students are using. As the state of UK academia and how we use digital platforms evolve, you’ll need to keep experimenting with socials to stay relevant, and find new ways of attracting and recruiting new students.

Sprout offers tailored solutions for UK higher education organisations. Find out more by requesting a demo today.

The post How to use social media for international student recruitment in the UK appeared first on Sprout Social.

Ah back-to-school season. On social, the ritual is marked by shopping hauls, first day of school snapshots and RushTok deep dives. For university social teams, it’s primetime to reach incoming students. From welcome week highlight reels to campus tours, the right content sets the tone for the student experience, while also fueling recruitment efforts, fundraising and alumni engagement.

Here’s our lineup of higher ed institutions making the grade on social during the back-to-school season, and key takeaways you can apply to your own strategy.

MIT: Serialized stories on YouTube

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a top-rated university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school is well-known for its achievements in STEM, and is celebrated globally for its prestige. MIT’s social team has crafted a YouTube strategy that reflects the institution’s reputation, weaving together its academic achievements and stories from life on campus.

On their YouTube channel, MIT has playlists dedicated to university news, student projects and innovative findings from its research programs.

They also have video recordings of their podcast, Curiosity Unbounded, and feature channels of different MIT organizations and schools—including their alumni association, school of engineering and student life sector.

All of MIT’s YouTube content underscores its commitment to academic prowess and innovative research. Yet, video subject matter is clearly tailored to distinct audiences. Videos in the “From around the institute” playlist are catered to prospective and current students, while the “MIT news” and “Mold it. Make it. Bend it. Break it.” playlists speak to the academic community at large.

MIT’s approach to YouTube is part of a larger strategy to amplify their research and reputation, helping them secure major honors and maintain a healthy pool of top applicants.

The play: Up against regulatory limitations on other networks, universities are turning to YouTube to build out their video content library. To build your presence on the network, take a cue from MIT by publishing long-form video series that focus on your university’s core strengths and values, while still following SOSEO best practices and understanding the nuance of YouTube’s algorithm.

For example, if your university is focused on amplifying your athletic department, you could launch a long-form video series about your program’s coaches, players and sporting event traditions.

University of Auckland: Home sweet campus

The University of Auckland is New Zealand’s leading and largest higher ed institution. As the university boosts its global profile, it has leaned into social media to attract students from all over the world.

A particularly entertaining series is called the “Best of U of A.” In the creator-style videos, the team finds the best restaurants on campus and shares their favorite orders—the uni version of the Food Network feed. From poke to sushi, viewers see the variety of delicious on-site eats.

The university also shares day-in-the-life videos shot by their students. The content shows prospects what attending Auckland is like, and how it’s possible to balance academic commitments with overall wellbeing.

To round-out their student life focus, the University of Auckland shares ambient ASMR-style videos from different mainstays on campus.

The social team’s efforts coincide with the ongoing development of a new student accommodation facility, which will be the largest in New Zealand—underscoring the importance in elevating the appeal of living on campus.

The play: A quick search on Reddit or TikTok will reveal just how divisive dorm living can be. Some users share horror stories, while others say it changed their life for the better. There are even subreddits for most major universities dedicated to questions first year students and prospects have about what campus life is actually like. Current students and alumni answer with candor.

The first step is using social listening to analyze these conversations. The second is developing content that answers your audience’s top questions and addresses their feedback. Use the University of Auckland’s content as inspiration for showing viewers the best of your campus, while taking insights about what can improve to leadership.

Penn State: Taking TikTok by storm

The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) is celebrated for its vibrant campus culture, as well as its top engineering and business programs and alumni network. They tap into that on TikTok—leading the way for other universities, with nearly 200,000 followers and 5.6 million likes to date.

Much of their best performing TikTok content is student or alumni-generated, like this dorm tour.

In other videos, they drum up excitement for campus events, like the return of football season. They also playfully nod to the instant connection between fellow Penn State alumni and the camaraderie of wearing Penn State gear.

The play: US universities are standing by while TikTok’s fate in the country is determined. But international higher education institutions depend on the network for reaching students. Meanwhile, TikTok has rolled out new Campus Verification features that help students connect with their classmates (reminiscent of the early days of Facebook), which could make it a necessity for university marketers worldwide.

Penn State stands out as one of the few American universities currently going all-in. If investing on TikTok makes sense for your strategy, take a page from Penn State’s playbook by experimenting with user-generated content and lo-fi videos.

London School of Economics: Threading together unfiltered thoughts

London School of Economics (LSE) was named the 2025 University of the Year by the Times, as well as the top school in the UK. LSE’s rigorous research programs and academic departments are respected globally.

While there’s little doubt that the university stands out for its achievements, it also stands out for its impressive Threads strategy, with nearly 90,000 followers to date.

On the network, LSE adopts a voice that feels specific to Threads. Their best performing posts are all slightly irreverent, sarcastic and steeped in internet humor. They showcase how well they “get” their students by sharing seemingly unfiltered thoughts that could come right from a flatmate group chat. Yet, they never cross the line and go completely off-brand.

They have a particularly clever way of using Threads’ mark spoiler feature to hide their punchlines and encourage engagement, like in this post where you have to tap to see what L stands for.

Or this post, where you tap to reveal an unexpected (but completely relatable) university routine: accidentally scrolling memes in the library for two hours.

As LSE boosts its profile on Threads, it also launched a dual-degree program with prominent US university NYU. Notably, Americans are among the top users of Threads—making it an optimal channel for reaching their new audience in the country.

The play: Many brands—including universities—are still trying to figure out how to make the most of Threads. LSE demonstrates that it does take a certain persona to break through on the network, but that doesn’t mean going completely unhinged. Instead, Threads calls for honest and relatable posts that sound like a real human wrote them.

Northwestern University: Passing down folklore

Northwestern is the #6 best university in the US. Situated in a North Shore suburb of Chicago, the university is known equally for its academic prowess as it is for its stunning campus on Lake Michigan.

The idyllic lakefront campus is the main character of many of Northwestern’s social media posts. Including this playful one, inspired by Taylor Swift’s Folklore album.

Or this Carousel that oozes academia core. Complete with gothic architecture, autumn leaves and moments on the quad.

The campus—with its cobblestone walkways, old world buildings, and immaculately polished buildings and grounds—is frequently listed among the most beautiful in the country (and the world). It’s certainly a draw for new students, but it also conjures up nostalgia for alumni and draws the attention of the global academia community.

The play: What is it that makes your institution unique? Is it the professor-to-student ratio? Greek life? Alumni? Whatever your differentiators are, promote them on social. Rather than touting your accolades or achievements, show what these traits mean to your students like Northwestern does.

Texas A&M: Miss Rev, reporting for duty

Texas A&M University is highly regarded for its strong academics, particularly in engineering, agriculture and veterinary medicine. The university is also recognized for its robust ROTC program and rich history as a military college. But it’s perhaps most well-known for its passionate fanbase, and strong “Aggie” spirit and traditions.

One of the most beloved is its mascot, Reveille X—or as she’s known on campus, Miss Rev. Miss Rev is a real Rough Collie from a long line of dogs who have served as the school’s mascot since 1931. Miss Rev is technically the highest ranking member of the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets, and even has her own social media presence to boot.

On her account, the Texas A&M team posts photos of her around campus. Like this one, where she’s enjoying ice cream at the campus creamery. Not only are the photos and videos adorable, they also educate prospects, students and alumni about the school’s history.

While Texas A&M isn’t the only school to have a page dedicated to their mascot, the love for Miss Rev is particularly palpable. When Miss Rev recently underwent a procedure, a joint post from her account and the university received almost 20,000 engagements on Instagram alone.

Miss Rev’s account is part of a network of many accounts the Texas A&M team manages. As Krista Berend, Director of Marketing and Communications at the university system told us, “We manage five different brands outside our institutional accounts…People take their passion for the university to the internet, so over the last several years, we’ve been able to tap into that online community and grow it.”

The play: Building an online community is challenging for brands across industries. But universities have an advantage because they have so many IRL communities to pull from—sports fans, alumni, clubs, departments and more.

Like Texas A&M, your social presence can be a place for rallying, growing and engaging these communities. The key is bottling up the magic of the in-person experience and translating it to the digital sphere.

To make the grade, university teams need social media

That concludes this month’s installment of the PPR. Stay tuned for next month’s edition, where we’ll feature our lineup of our brands in regulated industries making social less spooky. In the meantime, remember these key takeaways:

For more about the content and engagement audiences crave today, download The 2025 Content Benchmarks Report: Schools & Education.

And if you see a social post or campaign that deserves to be highlighted, tag us @sproutsocial and use #PostPerformanceReport to have your idea included in a future article.

The post Post Performance Report: Universities acing social media appeared first on Sprout Social.

Bluesky offers a micro-blogging structure similar to X with several key differences. Higher education professionals and students are exploring the platform as both a place to share and stay up to date. And they’re not alone: According to a Q2 2025 Sprout Social Pulse Survey, 48% of global social media users plan to spend more time on emerging networks like Bluesky.

Bluesky attracts a younger demographic, making it a natural fit for universities trying to reach students entering higher education.

In this article, we’ll dive into using Bluesky for higher education communities and share insights from colleges already on the platform.

Why universities are moving to Bluesky

Bluesky is a decentralized social media platform. This category of social networks differs from legacy networks like Instagram and X in that they aren’t owned by a single entity and or confined to a centralized server.

Transparent algorithms and user control

Since Bluesky is decentralized, it doesn’t use a top-down algorithm that dictates what content is suggested to users based on a single global server. Instead, users have more control over their individual algorithm, creating an evolving feed curated just for them. They also appreciate network transparency and the niche communities that thrive there.

More direct connection to academics, students and research communities

The user base on Bluesky also skews younger, aligning with a significant portion of universities’ incoming student groups.

According to Danielle Gabriel, Director of Marketing at Portland Community College (PCC), this is a crucial factor for universities investing in outreach, and a key driver behind the creation of PCC’s Bluesky presence. “We launched PCC’s official account to stay ahead of emerging communication channels and meet our audiences where they are migrating,” she notes.

Autumn Benitez, Social Media Specialist at Sprout Social, agrees. She says Bluesky could be a tool for relationship building for colleges.

“Bluesky’s transparent platform is a game-changer for universities looking to actually cut through the noise and build genuine connections with students and researchers,” she says. “Its focus on user control and real-time conversations let higher ed institutions engage authentically.”

No ad clutter, leading to credibility of academic content

The app is also ad free. This means significantly less clutter, making it easier to reach students and research communities. Plus, no ad-spend needed..

“Bluesky isn’t just about ditching ads. —It gives academic communities the power to steer their own conversations and build tight-knit networks around what really matters,” Benitez says. “It’s a fresh space for real knowledge sharing and collaboration,” she adds.”

Vibrant, topic-focused feeds

Bluesky also offers vibrant, topic-focused feeds that are useful for research and intellectual exchange. A range of topics—from agriculture to philosophy—can be found. And universities can curate “Starter Packs” to help users find and follow accounts within relevant spheres.

For institutions like Portland Community College, this is relevant in more ways than one, including tapping into social media culture. Gabriel sees Bluesky as a chance to tap into social media culture in a new way. “It’s an interesting opportunity to experiment in a space that’s still shaping its culture, voice and norms,” she says. “It also allows us to reinforce PCC’s identity as a forward-thinking, innovative institution that embraces new ways to connect with our community.”

It’s important to remember though, that  Bluesky is still an emerging platform, and universities may only find near-term value if their audience is already there.

“It’s still early days, so smart experimentation is key to unlocking Bluesky’s full potential,” Benitez explains.

Universities on Bluesky (and their approach)

To better understand what that potential includes, let’s review how a few schools are currently using Bluesky.

University of Oxford

Oxford has a thriving Bluesky presence, with over 14,000 followers. A portion of their content is focused on updates about the university and students. Most of their posts feature internal and external articles about the research happening at the university. From nutrition to political science, Oxford’s feed offers an inside look at the latest studies and findings.

Many of Oxford’s individual colleges have their own Bluesky accounts, which are often tagged in posts. This creates an opportunity to share commentary from various expert voices at the university on current topics. These pieces often tie to research being conducted as well.

The City University of New York (CUNY)

CUNY’s Bluesky feed functions as a daily update of news from the school, individual colleges and education-related topics in New York City at large. Posts include updates about enrollment numbers at the university, various grants and funding and new programs/certificates being offered by various departments. The account also spotlights current students and their achievements in competitions and research.

Students can also find useful information on arts and entertainment happenings on campus and upcoming sporting events. The overall feed is for students and academics alike to get quick access to CUNY news and opportunities and explore what the school has to offer.

Portland Community College (PCC)

PCC’s Bluesky feed showcases updates about the college itself as well as events across the multiple campuses the school has. There’s a focus on cultural events, highlighting that smaller colleges like PCC are just as community and diversity focused as large universities. PCC also shares content about their students, many of whom fit the “non-traditional” category and attend the college’s more trade-centric programs.

PCC’s Bluesky is link heavy, giving it an RSS feed-style feel. Students, staff and community members can easily scroll through to find stories they can explore more in-depth with a click.

Best practices for universities on Bluesky

If you’re ready to spread your wings and explore what Bluesky has to offer, it’s a good idea to consider some best practices to get the most out of the platform. Here are some approaches to get you started.

Claim your brand account

First, you’ll set up your university’s account. The basic format for Bluesky handles is @NAME.bsky.social, but there are ways to customize further. It’s possible to use domain names you own as a handle, (@NAME.university.edu for example), and higher education institutions can go through a verification process to get a blue check mark.

Once you have your handle, add your logo, header image, descriptive bio and important links. These can be fairly similar to your bios on other social media platforms.

Decide on your department’s strategy

The different departments across your institution, from colleges to newspapers to student organizations, all have great information to share. As you set up your initial account, determine the strategy you want to employ for individual accounts. Keeping everything centralized on one account can streamline things and simplify maintaining your brand voice. However, allowing departments to have individual accounts can expand your audience, build highly-engaged niche communities and take some of the pressure off your university’s social team. There’s no wrong answer here, so design a strategy that fits your school best.

A social media management platform like Sprout Social is useful here if you choose to go the multi-account route. Sprout helps streamline all handles into one location, and you can add in approval workflows to ensure content across the board is aligned. This enables individual departments to share unique content while keeping your brand voice consistent.

Curate Starter Packs

Starter Packs are lists of relevant accounts and resources that Bluesky users can follow with a single click. For universities allowing individual department accounts, Starter Packs are an excellent way to collect all of those feeds in one place for interested users to follow. You could also create Starter Packs of university staff to follow, sports teams, student groups and to support a niche marketing approach.

Additionally, individual Bluesky users may create Starter Packs related to education that may include your university account.

Design a content strategy

Consider your priorities for Bluesky to discern what your content approach should be. What are your goals and how does it align with your broader social media marketing strategy? Are there niche social media audiences you can specifically target on Bluesky? You can use your feed as an update/news tool, a thought leadership vehicle or a mix of both. You can share links, text posts, images and videos of up to 60 seconds, and much of your content from other social channels can likely be used here as well.

Sprout Social helps you take your Bluesky strategy further with publishing and scheduling for the app. Via Sprout, you can publish all types of content on Bluesky (including alt text for images) and tap Generate by AI Assist to help you iterate content ideas.

Build community

Since there are no ads on Bluesky, your strategy will focus on organic engagement and growth. Let your students and alumni know you’re on Bluesky via your website, emails, orientation sessions, etc. to start building your audience. Engage with followers as they find you, responding to comments and resharing content they tag your school in.

You can nurture community through curated Starter Packs that connect students to resources, and foster discussion on research topics.

Gabriel says PCC sees this as a key benefit of Bluesky. “Long-term, we see BlueSky as a place to cultivate community-first engagement rather than one-way broadcasting,” she notes.

Develop custom feeds

Without an overarching algorithm, Bluesky users can create custom feeds on whatever topics they wish. These can then be followed by other users who want to see content on a specific topic or niche discussion. Your university can create these for the school itself, research topics or student interests. Having custom feeds available can enhance the student experience on Bluesky and create more relevant community discussions for them to participate in.

Listen for feedback and insights

Bluesky uses a chronological timeline—something many other social media networks have moved away from. It’s easier for you to see recent posts in custom feeds and the content of those you follow on Bluesky, making it a useful tool for social listening.

For example, if you have a custom feed for your university and are interested in how new students are responding to orientation and the school year’s kick off, you’ll be able to see students sharing their experience on Bluesky in real time.

As you track community discussions, you can jump in and contribute as the official university voice where it makes sense. You can also notice patterns in feedback and  see potential issues coming down the line.

Monitor performance and growth

Tracking how your content does is an exciting part of social media in the education space, as each engagement represents a real student or alumni. Currently, Bluesky doesn’t offer built-in analytics dashboards, though you can manually track metrics such as likes and reposts.

However, Sprout Social connects with Bluesky, which enables you to track KPIs alongside your other networks automatically, saving you manual effort. Sprout also monitors engagement metrics and provides you with post-performance reports to support your Bluesky strategy and overall social media presence.

Embracing Bluesky for education

Experimenting with emerging social platforms like Bluesky can help universities and colleges stay competitive and connect with audiences in new ways. There’s potential for student and alumni communities as well as research dissemination and discussion on Bluesky, creating a new “town square” that can reach beyond campus walls.

For a look at how schools are evolving their social media approach across platforms, check out our social media benchmarks report for education. 

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Back-to-school season is in the air. You can hear it as students, teachers and their parents get back in the rhythm of the academic year. You can see it in advertising campaigns, with businesses offering discounts on supplies, meals and clothing. But there’s nowhere the back-to-school feeling is as strong as university campuses.

On social, the return to college life is marked by move-in day montages and new student rites of passages. Capturing these moments is not only pivotal for rallying current students, but also for drumming up excitement for future students and alumni.

Here’s our lineup of higher education institutions curating the perfect balance of school spirit, entertainment and academic opportunity on social during the back-to-school season.

Vanderbilt University: A warm welcome to the “Athens of the South”

Vanderbilt is a prestigious research university in Nashville, Tennessee. The institution is over 150 years old with a rich, celebrated history that is on full display at the beginning of a new term. Vanderbilt’s social media team weaves the college’s past into their modern approach to student engagement and recruitment.

Like during move-in week this year. The university shared a highlight reel of freshman and first-time students arriving on campus and being greeted by the Vanderbilt Move-in Crew. The video exudes a welcoming spirit—the kind of energy that makes nervous new students feel at ease on a new campus. With on-site interviews of parents and students, B-roll, drone footage and uplifting music, the production quality is especially impressive and illustrates the campus’ beauty.

Vanderbilt also creates excitement for their traditional Founders Walk event, the celebration of first-time students officially joining their community. In this Instagram Reel, you can see someone behind the camera waving a wand and transforming Alumni Lawn into a magical scene, complete with twinkling lights adorning the university’s ancient elm and oak trees. The comment section was flooded with nostalgic alumni and exuberant new students.

The Vanderbilt social team rounded out their Welcome Week strategy with trendspotting activations and lo-fi series. Like the Instagram Reel where the Class of 2028 jumped on the “Hot to Go” trend during their class photo. Or their series following freshman as they get settled in on campus.

Vanderbilt’s back-to-school strategies are already widely celebrated. Their Welcome Week 2023 campaign was nominated for the Collaborative Social Media Communications award by PR Daily. Their approach to social is an extension of other marketing and recruitment efforts that have resulted in the school being named the next “it college.”

The play: From the gorgeous shots of their campus to their 100-year-old traditions, Vanderbilt’s dreamy content is steeped in tradition. But they also complement the high quality production footage with lo-fi POVs from their students.

Take a cue from Vanderbilt by mixing high-brow production with authentic videos captured on smartphones. The resulting combination allows your amenities to shine, while leaving viewers with a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Arizona State University: Giving students their time in the sun

Situated in the Phoenix metropolitan area, Arizona State University (ASU) is one of the largest public universities in the US. On social, the school leans into student life-led posts—especially during back-to-school season.

Like this carousel comparing students’ packing essentials with that of their parents. The juxtaposition of what students deem “essential” compared to their parents is funny and endearing. The post serves as an opportunity for ASU to introduce their new class of incoming students, while acknowledging the work their parents have done to help them get to college. Commenters congratulated parents and students alike, noting how relatable the post feels.

ASU also creates informational guides during Welcome Week, like this roundup of signature events and a comprehensive list of move-in non-negotiables. As students increasingly flock to university social media channels for need-to-know intel, ASU demonstrates how to meet your students and prospects where they’re at.

During Welcome Week, ASU also shouted out their students representing their countries at the Games. Which is a taste of the steady drumbeat of content the university publishes celebrating their students’ achievements all year round.

ASU’s Welcome Week activations on social help boost and maintain the university’s public image. According to Sprout Social Listening data on X during move-in week (Aug 15-21, 2024), mentions of ASU and #ASUWelcome were 89% positive.

The play: Building an enriched campus life requires engaging your students. By centering the students in their Welcome Week content, ASU helps prospective students visualize what they could accomplish and what their experience will be like at the university.

University of Oxford: Student-generated content brings the academia aesthetic to life

Back to school at Oxford comes months later than other US schools in this roundup. The research university located in Oxford, England, begins the autumn term in early October. But that doesn’t mean the globally-renowned institution isn’t active on social during the summer months.

They recently participated in the “nobody will remember” trend, and gave it their own cheeky spin—poking fun at how much older their not-so-new college is compared to the US.

Oxford also posts idyllic images of their campus. Like the magic of old cobblestone buildings illuminated by moonlight and the tranquil warmth of an early morning sunrise reflecting off their Gothic rooftops—descriptions of a university that would come straight out of a novel.

Oxford has a social series where their students take viewers on virtual campus tours. The stops on the tours include “quintessential Oxford things” like gorgeous libraries, giant chess sets and a great hall filled with vintage portraits.

We look forward to following Oxford closely during “Freshers’ Week 2024,” a welcoming celebration for freshmen students that includes a fair, dinner, orientation and more.

The play: When consuming Oxford’s social content, the parallels the school makes between academia core—the internet aesthetic—and their own student experience are obvious. It works because it feels true to the university’s legacy as the second-oldest in continuous operation.

What makes your university unique? Whether it’s your architecture, famous landmarks or traditions, those should be at the center of your social strategy.

NYU: Taking a bite out of the Big Apple

When you think about New York University (NYU), words like talent, ambition and urban environment come to mind. Those are apt descriptions—the university uses that terminology on its own admissions page. On social, this NYU ethos comes to life.

All summer long, NYU has showcased the impressive accomplishments of their students in various intern programs. Like this Reel of a student intern at the American Song Archives. The documentary style of the video makes it feel elevated and professional, and gives the intern a chance to illustrate his preservation expertise and the interesting work he completed. The series demonstrates the many possible internship opportunities and career paths available to NYU students.

As the countdown to Welcome Week drew nearer, the university published daily countdown posts hyping up spots in NYC and around campus. They also published a Summer Walk series, where their team took viewers on scenic tours of the best walkable spots near NYU. This series incorporates some of the most famous buildings in the world along with charming local spots—something most “college towns” can’t offer.

When move-in day finally arrived, the school shared a video of students asking their parents for their final words of advice. While the video was lighthearted, it also conveyed the immense love and pride these parents feel toward their children, and how much they want them to make the most of their time at the prestigious school and in NYC.

NYU has remained in the top 10 of the Dreams Schools list published by Princeton Review for the past three years. The list compiles student and parent picks—proof that the school is growing in esteem. The buzz surrounding NYU on social is helping lift overall sentiment.

The play: When life gives you a Big Apple, you can’t sleep on it (that’s the saying, right?). As NYU proves, leaning into the unique advantages of the environment your university is part of delivers an X-factor that’s difficult to compete with.

#RushTok Spotlight: University of Oklahoma’s Kappa Kappa Gamma

Perhaps one of the most chronically-online back-to-school traditions is RushTok, the corner of the internet dedicated to Greek life rush week. During rush week, sorority and fraternity hopefuls participate in a series of events like house visits and philanthropy events, in hopes of being chosen and initiated into a brotherhood or sisterhood.

RushTok is well known for OOTD videos dissected by commentators like NFL plays and over-the-top, well orchestrated dances meant to entice people to join a certain sorority. Across both content types, the assignment is clear: Look polished, match your fellow sisters and have an unmistakeable rush aesthetic.

Which is why the University of Oklahoma’s Kappa Kappa Gamma theme of “blue” took the internet by storm. In their video, the wide and wild interpretation of the theme left commenters shocked. “I’m equally terrified and proud,” commented one user. Another added, “The Avatar took me.”

But most of all the sentiment was positive and supportive, with many saying they would consider rushing the sorority in the future.

The play: Why blend in when you can stand out? Just because there’s a formula for higher ed institutions, clubs and societies, doesn’t mean it can’t be rewritten.

A+ recruitment strategies must include social

That concludes this month’s installment of the PPR. Stay tuned for next month’s edition, where we’ll feature our lineup of our favorite holiday campaigns. In the meantime, remember these key takeaways:

Looking for actionable advice to build an engaged community, foster relationships with current and prospective students and unify your university’s voice and brand across departments? Check out our interview with Gettysburg College.

And if you see a social post or campaign that deserves to be highlighted, tag us @sproutsocial and use #PostPerformanceReport to have your idea included in a future article.

The post Post Performance Report: Higher ed institutions raising the bar on social appeared first on Sprout Social.

Addressing the needs and interests of multiple audiences calls for a commitment to data, collaboration and tailored messaging. Thankfully, each of these commitments supports the others. At least, that’s what Gettysburg College’s social team found after testing and learning.

Kailey White, assistant director of Social Media & Digital Strategy, and Staci Grimes, director of digital marketing are the driving force behind Gettysburg College’s social media strategy. Together, they’ve transformed digital spaces into online communities where key audience segments can deepen their engagement and advocacy with the college.

We spoke with Grimes and White to get the inside scoop on what it takes to develop a high-impact social media strategy for higher education institutions. Keep reading for their top tips, plus a behind-the-scenes look at their student intern program.

Bonus Resource: The 2025 Schools & Education Content Benchmarks Report reveals the latest performance trends across networks—plus what types of content are actually driving engagement today. Use it to plan smarter, post better, and stay ahead in the year to come.

Get the report

5 higher education social media tips from Gettysburg college

Marketing teams in universities and colleges manage various elements of their strategy, including department and program goals, audience needs and an overarching marketing plan. The following tips will help you balance these factors to create a cohesive, value-driven higher education social media strategy.

1. Create network-specific social media strategies

Gettysburg College’s largest audience is their current student population. It’s a key audience, but if they only created social content with traditional college students in mind, they’d miss the opportunity to engage other important groups, like parents and alumni.

“Understanding audiences and their preferences allows us to deliver more personalized experiences across channels,” says White. “For example, TikTok attracts a younger demographic, which requires a different content strategy than Facebook, where parents and families are our key audience.”

Sprout’s network-specific social media reporting options help White maintain an updated understanding of each profile’s unique audience. “Our strategy really acknowledges the different needs of our varying stakeholders, and we attribute that audience insight to Sprout.”

2. Connect marketing goals to university vision

If you want to create an effective higher education social media strategy, it’s not enough to seek engagement for engagement’s sake. Plans should align to your college’s goals for the future.

The Gettysburg College social team supports the institution’s strategic vision by enhancing its reputation and expanding its reach, while fostering an environment that strengthens recruitment and philanthropy.

“Our office uses an integrated marketing plan every year, and we map that directly to the College’s strategic direction,” explains Grimes. “We’ve identified the key metrics that allow us to understand whether or not our work is being impactful. That’s how we ensure that the work that we’re doing is advancing the vision for the institution.”

3. Share social media performance data proactively

Grimes and White show up to every planning meeting with relevant social insights, no matter who it’s with. This practice supports more collaborative work with several different organizations on campus, increasing the overall effectiveness of their strategy.

“We gather specific data so we can be as strategic as possible when consulting with different departments and programs,” says Grimes. “Our focus on performance and audience insights influence the cadence and delivery of messaging across the institution.”

White shares monthly reports with the Gettysburg content team so they can incorporate social insights into upcoming work. Grimes provides an analysis of social KPIs for reports that their Chief Communications & Marketing Officer, Jamie Yates, delivers to the school’s board of trustees several times a year to showcase the impact of their strategy. These reports may have different goals and audiences, but one source of truth informs them: Sprout Social.

“One of the things that I really appreciate about Sprout is the fact that all of our prominent brand accounts are attached to our Sprout dashboard,” shares Grimes. “It aggregates insights, allowing us to look at everything through the same lens.”

4. Work with campus partners

As the college’s social media presence grows and evolves, more programs are interested in getting involved. “We’ve definitely seen an influx of our campus partners joining social media spaces,” says White. “Our library, our dining services department, different academic programs—they’re all very involved, and they look to us to find out what they could be doing better.”

Grimes and White collaborate to support these requests by educating campus partners on how to navigate social media. They’ve created and shared presentations on representing the Gettysburg brand on social, launching a strategic social media presence and increasing student engagement.

These efforts create new opportunities to showcase the value of social media with strategic partners. As a result, the college continues to strengthen its online presence and foster a more connected campus community.

5. Use social listening to stay ahead of the conversation

According to Grimes, social listening is crucial for keeping the Gettysburg social media strategy audience-centric. “We use listening tools to evaluate the timing of different campaigns, assess the positive mentions of the college in digital spaces and measure our work against industry benchmarks.”

It also plays a key role in crisis management. When an issue—whether it be local, national or global—is unfolding, the Gettysburg team uses Listening to determine whether they should pause scheduled posts or develop messaging around the issue. The tool provides an overview of the conversation at large, along with valuable sentiment analysis data to provide a clearer understanding of audience opinions.

“Sometimes, an issue will feel very prominent to us because we’re in the comments and reading conversations. Then, we’ll look at Listening data and see that the conversation’s impact is pretty limited. It helps us understand from a really realistic perspective what truly is happening and whether or not we need to either take action or resume normal business.”

– Staci Grimes, Director of Digital Marketing, Gettysburg College 

How Gettysburg College manages their student intern program with Sprout Social

The tips outlined above will help refine your strategy, but there’s nothing to refine without content. At Gettysburg, students aren’t only featured in social media posts—they’re also involved in planning and producing them.

The Gettysburg College marketing office hires a dozen or so interns every academic year. These roles mimic the responsibilities of the college’s professional staff, including copywriting, video production, photography and graphic design.

This isn’t your average internship. Students receive exclusive training and networking opportunities with previous intern cohorts. They also get the opportunity to collaborate on a professional-grade content production effort.

“The students use their talents to support one high profile event at the college every year.” explains White. “For the past two years, Gettysburg College and community partners hosted Ken Burns for the Gettysburg Film Festival, and our office interns have been highly involved in executing the coverage strategies for those events.”

White creates each student’s individual social media report using Sprout Social’s Tagging feature, which allows users to label pieces of content for more tailored reporting options.

“We create a specific Tag for every student intern,” says White. “That way, we can filter our reports with their name Tag to create their unique report. We can even drill down into their specific speciality. For example, if their focus is photography, we can filter the report by their name along with a content type Tag.”

These reports do more than just highlight their achievements—they help them stand out in a competitive job market.  “The lead intern during the festival’s first year talked about the experience in a job interview, and the interviewer called our program director to share how impressed they were.” shares White. “She ended up landing the role, which was awesome to hear.”

The Gettysburg marketing internship program provides mutual benefits for both the social media team and the participating students. The students gain real-world work experience, while their contributions generate relevant, authentic content that drives higher engagement with key audiences.

Create a smarter higher education social media strategy with Sprout Social

When colleges and universities invest in their social media strategy, they do more than set up another communication channel. They foster a sense of community and build connections with students, alumni, fans and more.

Curious to see how other schools are using social media analytics tools to elevate their strategies? Find out how Texas A&M University earned 8.3 million content impressions in 6 months using Sprout.

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There are higher ed institutions prospering on the platform—attracting the attention of students and alumni alike. Our Social Media Benchmarks Report for Higher Education shows 68% of high school students use social channels to research schools. Our report also reveals 80% of alumni organizations agree that social media has the most impact on engagement. And 41% of school officials can directly attribute increased enrollment to social strategy.

We spoke to several institutions including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bowling Green State University and Ohio University to discuss how they navigate challenges and their tips for building a presence on TikTok. In this article, we’ll also show examples from these colleges and universities leading the way on TikTok for higher education.

3 institutions leading a masterclass on TikTok for higher education

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

MIT has mastered the TikTok niche. Whether it’s showcasing a robot solving a Rubik’s cube in .38 seconds,

Or giving a behind-the-scenes look at student life, the prestigious institution does an excellent job of balancing different types of content to appeal to various audiences.

2. Bowling Green State University

Bowling Green State University (BGSU) was the first university on the “clock app” in Ohio and has been a leader in higher education TikTok ever since. They are one of the most followed institutions in the state.

Along with original content, BGSU highlights the university’s unique offerings, such as the Carillon Market, which features Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology. The market is one of BGSU’s dining options and the technology used in the store enables students to shop for items by scanning a QR code or tapping a debit or credit card upon entry. Students can simply tap, walk in, grab their food and walk out without using a traditional point-of-service system:

“TikTok is a great platform for finding new audiences. We have had so many students from across the country that say they found our university through TikTok and that’s why they chose to enroll in BGSU,” says Brianna Blackburn, Manager of Social Media Strategy, Bowling Green State University.

3. Ohio University

Ohio University (OU) is one of the leading institutions in the nation for engagement on social. OU knows how to connect with their audience while also connecting the university to TikTok trends. For example, in the video below, they share their rendition of the “We’re XYZ,” trend:

They also partnered with their university communications and marketing departments to produce a Halloween themed series featuring OU’s mascot, Rufus the Bobcat:

The challenges to creating a higher ed TikTok strategy

In 2023, several states and university systems banned or restricted TikTok on their campuses, often by blocking access from campus wifi. Our benchmarks report highlights four other common challenges for higher ed organizations on social, including: multiple audience segments, departmental silos, competing interests and ineffective tools. Here’s a quick overview of those challenges:

Multiple audience segments: Colleges and universities have multiple audiences–prospective students, current students, alumni, faculty, fans—and they all want different types of content.

Departmental silos: Managing various audiences becomes more challenging when there are different departments and teams with different focuses and goals.

Competing interests: School rivalries go beyond sports. Practitioners have to understand their competitors’ social performance to benchmark and improve their institution’s social strategy.

Ineffective tools: Without the right tools to measure success, gaining a bird’s eye view of performance and impact becomes even more difficult. Despite these common pain points, there are ways social practitioners can navigate these challenges successfully.

How to build a standout TikTok presence in higher ed

Here are eight tips for building a presence on TikTok in higher education:

1. Identify your bread and butter to create engaging content

Jenny Li Fowler, Director of Social Media Strategy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recommends centering on “bread and butter content”. This bread and butter content refers to a set of content or specific topics that everyone in your community expects and values from you, such as campus photos.

“Every university has its culture and things the community rallies around, like a sports team. For us, numbers are our love language—anything that’s nerdy or quirky we also love,” she says.

However, Fowler also encourages higher ed intuitions to embrace spontaneity as well. For example, MIT is often an answer in jeopardy, so that could be an opportunity to play on a specific moment.

“When your culture intersects with the popular culture or zeitgeist, that’s social media gold. But that is a test of how quickly your team can move and capitalize on those moments. You can create some really creative, powerful and authentic content in these moments,” she says.

“Lean into what makes your institution and your culture unique. Don’t try to do the dances or follow all the trends unless it’s a natural fit. Trends are easier to get wrong than right,” she says.

2. Focus on complementary goals and common interests

Fowler runs the flagship channel, so her primary audience is global. Although prospective students and alumni aren’t her main focus, they’re part of her audience. She explains it’s a positive that various departments have specialized goals and specific audiences because it enables teams to complement each other.

“I think that’s even better that we do because we can point to each other. For example, some departments may have similar niches like cognitive sciences or neurological studies. Some [department labs and centers] are focused on artificial intelligence, while others are centered on robotics or humanities. When people come to me for a consultation, I always recommend them to reach out to people in different departments so they can amplify each other’s work, such as for event promotion,” Fowler says.

“It’s always better to work together than trying to single handedly build a community from scratch. If you have different teams it’s nice to be able to work off of each other and share each other’s content,” she says.

“Our admissions department focuses on prospective students so they get to do a lot of really cool, edgy content that might not speak to my whole broader audience. We have more professionals, educators and academics who follow the flagship channels who appreciate more of our bread and butter content: research, science, robotics. The admissions department gets to do more fun, innovative content—and thank goodness because they’re so good at it.”

3. Embrace and empower partnerships with students

Elise Holbrook, Senior Social Media Specialist, Ohio University says the student team is a large part of their success on TikTok. While Holbrook oversees overall strategy and content approval, the student social team produces content for TikTok and Reels. Juliana Colant, is a senior member of OU’s student social media team and works very closely with Holbrook.

“The student team has always been such an important part of our strategy because students know the university and campus life super well. They have more of a pulse on what is interesting to people their age,” Holbrook says, “If you’re going to be creating content for young people, then young people need to be involved.”

In 2023, BGSU started a brand ambassador program. Blackburn meets with ambassadors biweekly to brainstorm ideas for content. They also create TikTok content during these meetings.

BGSU has leveraged a student social media intern team for years, but in 2023, they launched a brand ambassador program for student micro influencers. The students post on their personal social media channels weekly, but also have the opportunity to learn, brainstorm and create TikToks with the BGSU social team in-person twice a month.

“Having an extra layer of connection with students has tremendously helped us stay in touch with what’s happening on campus and hear new ideas and perspectives from a variety of students—we get amazing TikTok and campaigns ideas from them. It’s also a great learning opportunity for students interested in marketing or public relations,” she says.

4. Add your institution’s own spin

Holbrook and Colant recommend identifying ways you can connect popular content to your institution whether it’s a TikTok trend or sound.

“We try to see how we can blend OU into the TikTok space in a way that’s engaging and fun, but also informational for the audience we’re trying to reach,” Colant says.

For example, the team created several videos during the Barbie movie parody trend, like this one below:

But our social practitioners agree that there’s an art to hopping on trends. Blackburn mentions how they participated in the “I’m X, of course of XYZ” trend on TikTok.

Blackburn explains the “I’m X, of course,” trend was successful because they were able to post when it was first becoming popular on TikTok. Instead of making it just about BGSU students, they made the video about all college students, which captured a much broader audience. She advises teams to act fast when hopping on trends and create content that is relatable to a broad audience.

“The higher education industry is generalized as being slow to change or slow to marketing tactics. But TikTok is a unique opportunity for us to really be different from that stereotype and become early adopters,” she says.

“It’s really easy to just do a quick lip sync to an audio, but what really makes our account stand out is that we have so much variety in content.”

Along with using TikTok sounds, BGSU posts vlogs and skits. She encourages teams to become early adopters of different techniques as well, such as experimenting with editing styles.

“Have fun with editing like zooming in or adding sound effects. Really mix it up, see how your audience responds, and keep experimenting. Taking thoughtful and strategic risks as a public institution help you stand out from your peers. So that’s been our approach as a social-first focused brand,” Blackburn says.

“It’s more important to us that we create solid, consistent content even if that means posting something that’s different than anything we’ve done before or not exactly ‘perfect’ in our eyes. We always strive for progress over perfection. TikTok growth is about being all in—it’s just a matter of going for it,” she says.

5. Have fun while leaning into your audience’s interests

Holbrook explains there’s a tendency in higher ed to feel like the content has to be serious because teams have a brand to uphold, but she encourages teams to step outside their comfort zone.

“A bigger part of our strategy has been not taking ourselves too seriously. To some degree you want to present yourself as a legitimate academic institution. But people in the [target audience] of college students don’t want to see a brand–whether it’s a college or any brand—be super serious all the time,” Holbrook says.

Fowler encourages social teams in higher education to have fun when building a presence on TikTok.

“Some of the most engaging types of content are those that allow you to tie back to your community or your culture. Those are the most fun,” Fowler says.

For example, MIT created a Barbie box :

“Even just calling your audience Barbies and saying ‘Hey, my nerd Barbies,’ works,” Fowler says.

“I used to joke that one of the most difficult decisions I make a day is which emoji to use. It’s social media. It’s supposed to be fun and sometimes I think we forget that fundamental fact,” Fowler says.

6. Build community through consistency

Colant says there’s two key things to remember with TikTok strategy: consistency and community. Consistency is important because TikTok isn’t a platform where you can just post once a month and then expect to see a great growth or response rate. You need to consistently publish content for your audience, along with viewers who aren’t following you yet, but see your content on their For You Page. She also speaks to how TikTok is often associated with the chase of virality, but building community is more important.

“Getting a million views on every single video would be awesome, but it’s about building a consistent community. We want to connect with potential students, current students and alumni, so think about how you can best connect with the current community while also receiving great engagement.”

7. Become best-in-class by analyzing performance and competitors

Holbrook says showing proof points of both quantitative and qualitative can help show the “why” behind your TikTok strategy. For example, by pulling reports where you can view relevant engagement metrics like reshares, comments and likes, you get a quantitative sense of performance. She also recommends looking to the TikTok comments to see how the content resonates with your audience to gain a qualitative sense of your posts.

Along with reviewing OU’s TikTok performance, the team has a page dedicated to following other colleges, universities and competitor institutions to see how different schools approach content.

“How are they covering their football games? Could we do something similar or different? You can really learn and grow by looking at your competitors,” Colant says.

Beyond competitor institutions, the team pays attention to posts from content creators, influencers and brands.

“That’s a really important thing to consider on [short-form video platforms] like TikTok and Reels that are competing for people’s views. How do you get on the level of those brands that are always getting the trending videos,” Holbrook says.

“I like to look at TikTok strategy as being a student of the platform. We’re always studying the platform and listening. We avoid posting just to post because we listen first and see how the general conversation is going,” Blackburn says.

8. Create partnerships with TikTok education influencers

Fowler says higher ed institutions have a built-in group of micro-influencers because current and incoming students have never known life without social media. Today’s undergraduates aren’t just scholars—they’re content creators and influencers. And of course alumni and fans have social presences as well.

“You have ambassadors who already love you and are your real fans. People get excited when their favorite institution reaches out. Many students have their own YouTube channels with several thousand followers. To me, that’s a micro-influencer. Tap into those people and pitch an opportunity to work together,” she says.

Along with using micro-influencers within their ambassador program, BGSU collaborated with their first influencer, @eliemagic in 2023. He travels to campuses across Ohio to interview students and he also has a series dedicated to Greek life and student athletes. BGSU reached out after he announced he was coming to campus, and they worked to accomplish something he couldn’t do on his own: interview a professor.

“He came in and surprised the class, so that was a cool experience to see the shock on everyone’s faces because he’s very recognizable in Ohio,” she says.

Just like TikTok trends, the higher education social media playbook is dynamic, but these tips can help you develop your presence on TikTok.

Higher education TikTok: Foster connection beyond the For You Page

The common piece of advice from all three institutions? Focus on community and connection on your TikTok and other channels to establish rapport with your audience segments. If you want to learn more ways to use TikTok for education, get inspired with our list of 15 ways to use social media for education.

The post 3 Institutions leading a masterclass on TikTok for higher education appeared first on Sprout Social.

Because we believe in the power of social media to make nearly anything easier, we will share 15 ways to use social media for education, based on insights shared with us from top institutions.

Benefits of social media in education

Here are our top three benefits of using social media in education:

Benefit 1: Extends learning opportunities

Social media unleashes more learning opportunities. Online classes and remote jobs are the new norm, so teaching students to work from a distance becomes a necessity for digital literacy and preparing them for their careers. Social media platforms support educators in various ways from sharing announcements to holding live lectures.

Benefit 2: Create connections with students and alumni

Social provides a way for institutions to quickly and directly communicate with students, faculty, staff and alumni, fostering connections across various audiences. Social content can attract prospective students, keep parents informed, grow alumni networks, promote on-campus events and more.

Focusing on nurturing community and publishing engaging content can also help increase enrollment. According to our Higher Education Social Media Benchmarks for 2023 report, 41% of school officials can directly attribute increased enrollment to social strategy.

For example, Keele University said their campus photos on Instagram help students solidify their college decision. One student came to the university because she saw their posts on Facebook and it helped confirm her decision, later becoming a digital ambassador for the school.

Source: Instagram

Benefit 3: Build brand identity

Social supports and amplifies university branding. University marketing teams use social media to maintain a positive brand reputation for their institutions. With the right strategy, colleges and universities can attract more students, increase endowments, promote events or initiatives and improve alumni relations.

Bonus resource: Current students, prospective students, alums, athletes and fans all want something different from your social presence. Use this higher education social media benchmark report to guide your strategy as you meet each of your audiences where they are.

Get the report

Social media in the classroom

From preschool to college, there are so many methods for using social media in the classroom to communicate and educate. Here are seven ways to use social media in the classroom across platforms:

1. Use posts to broadcast updates and alerts

Instructors and colleges can meet students where they are by incorporating social media platforms they’re likely already familiar with like Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter).

Have students follow a class Facebook Page or join a Facebook Group to view posts about course updates, homework assignments and tests. Universities can have publicly accessible pages dedicated to specific schools or departments that students can see even if they aren’t active on Facebook.

Source: Facebook

When using social media for education, it’s important to maintain a professional boundary. Email students a direct link to the Facebook Group for access and avoid sending friend requests. Groups are the perfect “home base,” especially for online courses because it makes it easy to connect with students. Similarly, instructors and departments can use Posts on X to keep students informed.

2. Use live streaming for lectures and discussions

Instructors can use Facebook Groups, Instagram Live, YouTube Live or LinkedIn Live to stream lectures and facilitate more accessible learning. If a student can’t come to the lecture hall, they can join online or review later. Adding live captions helps students who may be deaf or hard of hearing, non-native speakers, or learn visually. And platforms like Instagram and YouTube allow live streams to be recorded, providing students with review material for midterms and finals season.

Recorded live streams also widen the institution’s reach and authority by making lectures available to scholars and professors from other colleges, states or countries.

3. Use X for class updates and more

X is a great option for providing quick updates and reminders to students. Teachers can create a single handle per class and reuse it every year, or they can create a new handle each school year. Use X threads to share resources like practice quizzes, interesting perspectives or thought-provoking quotes to foster critical thinking. Hashtags can mark specific discussions or chats with guest speakers.

4. Create a class blog for discussions and cross-channel learning

Blogs are another great outlet for incorporating social media in the classroom. Students can link to the class blog on other social channels. For example, a student might share a photo from their visual essay on LinkedIn to attract the attention of recruiters for job or internships. Using blogs as a semester-long assignment can improve students’ short-form writing and critical thinking.

Don’t feel limited to just an English or writing class; this use of social media in education can be transferred across all subjects. There are also several platforms professors can use to create class blogs, such as Tumblr, Medium or WordPress. The course syllabus, updates and resources can be shared on the blog as well.

5. Use Instagram for digital storytelling

Have students practice storytelling on Instagram by creating class-specific accounts where they can present photos or graphics (and delete them once the course is over, if they so choose). This can work especially well in visual-heavy classes: Have photojournalism students post essays or challenge the social media marketing class to create a faux-brand campaign.

Source: Instagram

6. Create a class-specific Pinterest board

Educators can use Pinterest to prepare and organize resources, lesson plans and worksheets for their classes in one place. They can also set up Pinterest boards for each of their classes and save pins that are relevant to lessons.

Create boards according to class or subject, and create sub-topic boards for weekly units, projects or worksheets. Pinterest can also be useful for students to curate a digital bibliography for research projects, papers or group assignments. Students can pin websites, books or videos to a board on a single topic and refer back to it when it’s time to write an essay or thesis.

7. Prep for post-graduation and create alumni relationships

LinkedIn can help current students develop networking skills, craft their personal brand and connect with alumni. Flexing these career muscles could help them earn internships, gain mentors and secure job offers before they walk across the stage on graduation day.

Institutions can use LinkedIn for university colleges as well.  For example, a business school may have several private LinkedIn Groups for regional alumni chapters to connect them with students and faculty for internships, fundraising, volunteer opportunities and events.

Source: LinkedIn

Encouraging students to post relevant articles, projects and research, internship experiences and other academic accomplishments helps the university develop social proof on the platform. This is also an excellent example of the importance of incorporating advocacy into your social strategy.

Social media for education marketing

Just as there were many ways to use social media in the classroom, there are also many uses for social media in education marketing. Social media marketing can help if you’re looking to reach a larger audience for your college or university. Let’s dive into how social media can empower education marketing.

8. Leverage TikTok creators and influencers for user-generated content

Although many public universities have banned TikTok from campus Wi-fi, some educators and institutions embrace the app to educate and connect with students. Student and teacher influencers can provide user-generated content that satisfies a prospective student’s desire to see authentic content from their peers and future professors.

For example, Chapman University professor @itsmattprince went viral after challenging his class to earn 1 million likes on a TikTok video in exchange for canceling their final:

Source: TikTok

Fun, yet real-world applications like this illustrate the power of social influence—plus who doesn’t love a canceled final?

9. Include social media links on your school website

In the Higher Education Social Media Benchmarks for 2023 report, we found that 68% of high school students use social channels to research schools. Many parents and prospective students will check a school’s website first if they’re interested, and offering even more ways to follow the school creates a different insight into campus life.

Make it easy for parents and students to find your school’s social media profiles by adding links to the website’s main navigation or creating a social media directory that houses them all in one place.

Source: UChicago.edu

10. Give a glimpse into student life through photo and video

If you want to attract new students and parents to your school, share photos of campus events to showcase what they could expect. Use short-form video like Reels, TikTok or YouTube Shorts to help prospective students envision themselves attending college there.

Highlighting events, sports, extracurriculars and the beauty of campus can make your school stand out from the rest. While school and university websites tend to follow the same mold, social media allows you to be more unique and casual like this Barbenheimer-inspired post from the University of Georgia:

Source: Instagram

For more inspiration on how to leverage social media for educational purposes, check out these examples of university social media posts.

11. Create alumni community groups

Many alumni want to remain involved with their alma mater after graduation. Creating a dedicated community via LinkedIn Groups can increase engagement. To maximize the effectiveness of your LinkedIn group, consider consulting a LinkedIn group user guide for best practices on fostering a thriving community.

For example, the University of Newcastle has over 148,000 alumni. Their team features current students, staff and alumni to amplify the career opportunities that manifest from being part of their community.

Alumni groups, groups for different graduating classes or departments, and groups for different extracurriculars and organizations allow former and current students to engage and meet others with common interests. Take a look at our alumni engagement best practices guide to learn more ways to keep the school spirit flowing.

12. Incorporate a social media crisis strategy

How would you communicate to the entire campus during an emergency? Whether it’s a fire, tornado or other immediate campus emergency, a social media crisis plan can help institutions proactively prepare. Keep parents and students updated on the situation by sharing information about the crisis and if authorities are involved. Many campuses have automated messaging alerts set up, but using social also enables people to be updated in real time.

Institutions can use social listening, which involves analyzing conversations and trends related to your brand, to aid with public relations crisis management plans. Purdue University leveraged Sprout’s capabilities a few years ago when they monitored for spikes in conversation around specific topics. This proactive approached allows them to get ahead of potential issues before they escalated into a full-blown crisis.

13. Use chatbots to support students outside of office hours

In our higher education social media playbook, we talk about the importance of social customer service. Using automated replies or chatbots can help the student body get their questions answered immediately, or at least guide them to a solution faster.

Keele University used chatbots via Sprout’s Bot Builder to respond immediately to common questions about courses and bursary information. In the five months after using chatbots, nearly 500 conversations addressed a variety of topics from housing applications to international student services.

14. Iterate social strategy to create student-centric content

Using social media for education allows educators and marketers to meet students where they are by connecting on channels they use everyday. Social creates an opportunity for institutions to be more even more student-centric. But to keep students engaged, institutions will need to produce content that caters to the wants and needs of their audience(s).

If you want to manage your institution’s social channels successfully, you’ll need to iterate and improve your strategy by reviewing the top and lowest performing content.

Dartmouth College uses Sprout’s Sent Messages report to determine content performance and iterate their overall social strategy as needed. After reviewing which posts performed well, they schedule new posts with similar content to inform their content calendar.

15. Manage your communities all under one roof

Social media empowers universities to bring their various audiences together. Many institutions have an extensive community of prospective and current students, faculty, staff and alumni, but this causes a common pain point: decentralization.

Since colleges and universities have multiple social media accounts, it can be difficult to manage them all seamlessly. However, using a social media management software centralizes multiple networks in one place, so overseeing various accounts becomes more manageable and scalable.

Texas A&M University, one of the largest public universities in the nation, uses social media to connect with these various communities. The university has hundreds of departments, 16 colleges and 19 NCAA sports, so using a social media management tool is essential. Their social team uses Sprout’s publishing suite to discuss strategy, collaborate on content creation and provide feedback to interns all on one platform. In just six months, between August 2020 and January 2021,  Texas A&M earned over 131 million impressions and 8.3 million content engagements across X, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

A tool like Sprout Social can help make social media management a breeze, regardless of whether you’re a solo marketer or a full marketing department. Multiple users can use the Sprout platform to create content with consistent messaging and schedule posts across networks at the best time using our ViralPost® feature.

And the Post Performance report takes the guesswork out of identifying what content resonates because teams can pinpoint top posts and view engagement across channels.

Sprout enables you to monitor and manage multiple accounts across different networks, which is ideal for educational institutions. Each department or teacher at your school might have their own separate social media accounts for specific information, and a social media management tool can help you ensure the right posts are going out on each of these accounts.

And if there is news or content relevant to multiple departments, Sprout enables users to share the same content across multiple profiles with a single click.

Start using social media for education

Using social media for education goes beyond the classroom because it helps educators shape a modern holistic learning experience, build community and establish academic authority.

Take some of these ideas for a test drive, and sign up for a free Sprout Social trial to help you manage it all.

The post 15 ways to use social media for education appeared first on Sprout Social.

Current students, prospective students, alums, athletes and fans all want something different from your social presence. Use this benchmark report to guide your strategy as you meet each of your audiences where they are. 

In this report, you’ll find:

• Need-to-know benchmarks to inform your social media strategy
• Key insights on care expectations specific to social 
• Advice to help your institution make the grade on social

Social data can enrich your marketing strategy with unfiltered insights on everything from the big game to the upcoming school year. Download this benchmark report and inform your approach with the metrics today. 

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