Did you know YouTube is the second-largest search engine? If you’re not leveraging higher ed video marketing to attract and retain your prospective student base, then it’s high time to do so.
Here are some mind-blowing stats about YouTube that Ryan Jenkins, an expert on Millennials and Gen Z, delivered during his opening keynote of Capture Higher Ed’s recent Resolve Enrollment Technology conference.
- It processes more than 3 billion searches a month
- Three hundred hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute
- More than half of YouTube views come from mobile devices
- Approximately 20% of the people who start watching a video will leave after the first 20 seconds
- YouTube overall and YouTube on mobile reaches more 18-34 year olds than any cable network in the U.S.
- YouTube is bigger than Bing, Yahoo!, Ask and AOL combined
So what does this mean for college admissions? Well, to no surprise, students are using YouTube in high amounts (54 percent of people aged 20 and under visit the site multiple times per day), so colleges must stay ahead of the curve in showcasing what it offers for its students via higher ed video marketing.
Not only do prospective students use YouTube to learn (i.e. “How To” tutorials or finding out about a college), but they also use YouTube as a form of communication. It’s another way to stay connected in social digital circles. They can comment, like, and share — all forms of digital interaction.
Their relationship with YouTube also implies their relationship with visuals. They are a highly visual, video-centric group who leverages the Internet to study, work, play, and contribute. In fact, forty-three percent of them prefer a digital approach to learning and find it easiest to learn from the Internet. More than 50 percent even say it’s easier or more convenient to chat digitally.
These suggest that it is imperative for colleges and universities to be accessible to students digitally. Platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are now standard protocol. Platforms like Snapchat have begun to see colleges take advantage of their tools as well.
In addition to having compelling and authentic videos on YouTube, colleges should be open to personal communication with students via digital streams like Skype and FaceTime. Prospective students should be receiving a response to their @admissions question on Twitter. When prospective students check the college’s Instagram, they should see what current students on campus see — not in a gimmicky way, but with honest, authentic, and transparent messaging coming right from the students’ mouths.
And they should be able to do all of this from their phone.
So how are you using higher ed video marketing and other digital marketing platforms to recruit and retain students?
By Ashli Findley, Content Writer, Capture Higher Ed
