Newsletter #56: A very big announcement; University of Sydney got 123K views for an accommodation TikTok; LinkedIn is launching its own Clubhouse

🎺 🎶 A very big announcement…

In the spring of 2020 when the pandemic first sent us all home, I started Education Marketer with just 8 people on the mailing list. Almost 2 years and 56 issues later, around half of the UK’s universities (and a surprising number from around the world) read the newsletter every fortnight, sharing it with their own education marketing teams: Just people sharing ideas, learning and creating great marketing. This is exactly what I wanted and, naturally, I want to help you do more.

So, what to do?

Well, there’s the masterclass route, but I think a lot has changed since 2020. Sure, there’s a market for skills like “how to create a content strategy”, “design thinking” or “content design” - but EVERYONE is offering that kind of support. I could do it too, but meh - what value would that truly add?

What may be more useful to you is a lens - a way of seeing the market and the opportunities within it. Also, a way of thinking that is constantly updated, refined and helps keep you ahead of the curve. Isn’t that more useful than an online course?

So, today, I’m inviting you all to learn about Education Marketer: Companion. It’s a new way to learn for your entire higher ed marketing team. If the free version of Education Marketer gives you 20% of the lens, Companion gives you the rest with a few surprises too.

It’s going to be great and I can’t wait to get started.

Learn about Education Marketer: Companion

📰 HE news

Boston University and Virginia Tech have been compared in a thought-piece about remote work. There’s nothing particularly new here - Boston thinks employees being in three days a week creates a great culture, whereas Virginia Tech sounds more like a place I’d like to work. What I find fascinating is that the debate doesn’t really matter, at least in the long run. The majority of the workforce is now made up of millennials and Gen-Z i.e people who are happy with their face-to-face being a video call. It doesn’t take a futurist to see where the chips will finally fall - if your employer is saying “back to campus,” they’ll likely pivot in the next year when it becomes nigh impossible to recruit. Talent isn’t competing in a local market anymore. Read

Times Higher Education bought Inside Higher Ed to build the Death Star of HE media. Comparatively, that makes Education Marketer about the same size as a Jawa. Having a combined audience of 50 million (I’m not sure where they pulled that number from) gives THE unrivalled access to higher ed professionals, policymakers and faculty. Maybe, together, both publications will finally find a way to fix their websites and get THE magazine into more locations, other than executive waiting areas. Still - what a deal. Congrats to both parties. Read

📊 Marketing and media news

There’re a few new features coming to TikTok, LinkedIn and Twitter. TikTok’s got a new “invite to watch” function, which means you can hack your way to growth via your other social media accounts. Twitter is testing “quote tweet with reaction,” which I think is a nice take on the reaction video format. Lots of potential here with academics responding to news items or students sharing their POV. But LinkedIn wins with its introduction of audio rooms: Its Clubhouse, but with an engaged professional audience. Explore audio rooms if you’re interested in establishing thought-leadership and don’t have the patience to grow a podcast audience. TikTok invites | Twitter reactions | LinkedIn audio

Digital asset ownership isn’t letting up in 2022. The latest is China’s youth flipping houses in the metaverse and some cryptopians planning to turn private islands into sovereign states. A lot of it is silly, but even Twitter is testing new features that could see NFTs fully integrated with profile avatars. For sure, some of this will stick, but exactly what is up for debate. A recent study shows that children are way less likely to spend money in VR than AR. Undergrads on the other hand, tend to invest the other way. Either way, I’m not sure creating a metaverse-like experience for your incoming students is quite the way to go yet. Twitter | China metaverse | AR VR study

🏫 What unis are doing

Plymouth College of Art has rekindled my interest in university course pages. Honestly, these are just beautiful. They have all the hallmarks of good UX, but the two stand-out features for me is the “student-work” tab and consistent use of high-quality, branded photography. Every course page feels like it belongs to a larger set and you get a strong sense of the College’s identity. Bookmark for when you are looking at your own course pages. Look

“Do you think the CTA is clear enough?”
“Erm…”
“Make it bigger. More arrows.” Look

University of Sydney banked 123K views for an accommodation TikTok, jumping on the #chooseyourcharacter trend. It’s not that special, just a 20-second flash tour of halls set to the Super Smash Bros Melee menu theme. In fact, I’m amazed this exists and Nintendo’s lawyers haven’t sent the entire trend to hell but that aside - it just shows how mad the TikTok algorithm can be. Sydney only joined TikTok late November 2021, and almost all of its videos have over 100K views. Look

🧑‍🎓 What students are saying

“You can’t really blame the students if the leaders can’t follow the rules themselves.” Some students react to the Downing Street parties taking place during lockdown. I think this could be Boris Johnson’s “tuition fees” moment. Look

👾 Culture shock

What happens when an AI generates new Pokémon based on Pikachu. No.23 is still with me. Look

A survey in 2012 revealed that 51% of people thought “the cloud” was affected by the weather. Read

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