The Digital Landscape Of College Search

What is it about the newly popularized social media platforms that continues to maintain the attention of high school students? For many users, these applications provide such a broad variety of content that it’s hard to not appreciate what the algorithms of each of these applications feed them. Similarly, as these platforms are mostly driven forward by the users of them, the content is otherwise endless, meaning users can spend as much time as they want browsing through it. Businesses all around the nation have noticed this and have since pivoted to these platforms in hopes of reaching the eyes of potential customers. But so too have the colleges and universities around the nation, attempting to attract aspiring students with content in any way that they can. When leveraged correctly, universities can even utilize their current students or recently graduated students to create this content. Using students as ambassadors can allow aspiring students to connect in such a way that nonorganic content might not allow. For example, a ‘day-in-the-life of a college student’ video might not resonate as much if it’s being posted by someone who clearly isn’t a college student. That said, campus tours, coverage of on-campus events and even study-with-me videos can all be incredibly effective in catching the attention of a prospective student, especially if they’re being framed through the eye of a current student. To learn more about the ways in which colleges are attempting to gear their content toward aspiring students, please check out the infographic paired alongside this post.