A social success for the University of Birmingham

Challenge

After enjoying high open day attendances last year having being named 2014’s University of the Year by the Times, the University of Birmingham tasked us with creating a social campaign that would once againencourage quality students to register for their undergraduate open days in June.

By working closely with the university’s social media manager, we were able to deliver an agile campaign that was both highly targeted and cost-effective in the short space of just two weeks.

Solution

To pinpoint prospective students who met the required criteria, we ran atargeted cross-platform social campaign to encourage perspective students meeting the university’s criteria to sign up. Using targeted posts and paid advertising, messages promoting the open days were displayed during the weeks leading up to the event to pupils of the university’s top feeder schools and their parents, as well as those who had already registered their interest in the university and their peers.

The posts were designed for maximum engagement, using persuasive copy, bespoke creative and video posts, and paid ads were A/B tested to ensure they achieved the best results to maximise click-throughs. We also ran promoted competitions on Facebook aimed at prospective students to encourage sharing and interaction, helping to reach a wider audience within the target demographic.

We made use of the university’s active Instagram account to promote the open days, posting both during the build-up and on the open days themselves with the aim of encouraging user generated content from prospective students using the hashtag #HelloBrum. This hashtag was also used and monitored on Twitter to generate discussion around the events and garner feedback, and it quickly became a trending topic in the UK.

Results

The social buzz generated during the campaign was quite impressive. The university gained a total of 1,434 new followers on Twitter, where open day tweets made 1.32 million impressions and #HelloBrum was used 1,101 times.

On Facebook, the paid media – including the competition and video posts – had a total reach of over 2.5 million, with the paid ads generating acost per click of between 6p and 45p depending on the audience.

The number of likes on the university’s Instagram also hit its highest peak since February 2014, with an average of over 350 likes for each image posted.

As a result, more than 14,000 prospective students registered in advance for the open days, with a further 7,213 signing up on the day.

Want to find out more? Take a look at the Connecting Element website