Websites like YouTube rack up billions of hours of video view time every single month. Needless to say, social media users like consuming video content. It’s quick to queue up and play, and all the important information is delivered in an easy-to-consume medium.  

As such, video marketing is an important way to promote your college program in today’s culture. However, it can be difficult to come up with original video content ideas that will keep a viewer’s attention and make your specific brand look good. 

Here are sixteen video content ideas you should try out yourself. 

1. Interview Current Students

One of the first video content ideas you may want to explore is interviewing current students. You could ask them how they feel about the campus, why they decided to join your particular college, and what they plan on doing with their future. What are some of the clubs they’re in and their hobbies?

You should showcase current students to put a lens on the campus culture. They can talk about why they chose this particular college as opposed to their competitors. This can also include what they like about the campus. 

In addition, you can encourage them to talk about your programs and how it applies to their long-term goals. 

2. Focus on Alumni and Their Current Career Paths

The natural follow-up to interviewing current students is to talk to past ones. More specifically, you’ll want to talk to alumni who have maintained a positive relationship with the college. 

The reason to focus on these specific alumni is that they are more accessible and have hopefully maintained some line of communication with their alma mater. They won’t be hard to get in touch with, and they should be willing to sit for an interview.

You can ask your alumni how their college experience helped them grow into the person they are today. They may want to discuss their current career path and how it benefited from their education.

It also looks good for the college to have real people talking about why they loved attending it.

3. Create a Thank You Video for Prospective Students

Students will often apply to multiple different colleges before they graduate high school. Depending on their grades and extracurriculars, they may get accepted into more than one of these. It’s important that your college stands out from the competition in whatever way it can.

One way to accomplish this is by sending a “thank you” video to your applicants. This video can help them retain your college in their mind, especially if it has particularly noteworthy or interesting content. 

If your college has officially accepted an applicant, then you can always send them a personalized video detailing why they should choose your college. 

4. Turn Old Blog Posts Into New Videos

Sometimes, older blog posts will hold important information that an individual can find with a simple internet search. However, you may also want new website visitors to view that content when they show interest in your college program. 

Instead of reposting or trying to revamp that old blog post, you can always turn it into video content that links back to the original article. 

The main benefit of turning a blog post into a video is that you can more easily demonstrate the visual aspects of the information.

For example, Freshmen may not know how to purchase textbooks at the beginning of the year. Your video can show them exactly what building to visit, where to go, and how to find their specific books among the rest. 

5. Put a Spotlight on Professors

For some students, the educational facility is an important factor in why they enroll. It helps to not only have professors that are interested in teaching but also are good at it.

This can mean actually caring about the students and adjusting their lessons as needed. Or it could mean a professor giving up some of their personal time to answer emails and give updates on assignments. 

You can have them discuss their classes as well as whatever else they do for the college. Maybe they focus most of their time on research and studies. Or maybe they help out with some of the clubs on campus.

6. Student-Submitted Content

One easy way to generate video content for your social media pages is to share student submissions. These could be anything from content made for their clubs, their classes, or their personal social media profiles. 

You can encourage students to make content by offering various prizes or rewards for their efforts. Make it a campus-wide activity or a challenge. You can even theme it around certain holidays or college pride. 

However, always make sure that you get permission from the students. And vet the content before sharing it publicly on your social media channels and website. 

7. Virtual Open Days

A college or university open day is meant to provide an opportunity for prospective students to take a look around the campus. This lets them get first-hand experience walking around and seeing everything there the college has to offer. It especially helps if students are expected or encouraged to live in the dorms on campus. 

However, this opens up problems for students that live outside of the state or country. They can’t easily travel to your college to look around. Instead, you can offer virtual open days online. 

Live stream all of your presentations and share student testimonials. Give a video tour of the campus and save the stream so students can look at it later. 

8. Virtual Tours

Another way to appeal to potential students out of state is with virtual tours. Like with virtual open days, a virtual tour is meant to promote your college to people who can’t easily visit it. 

Someone looking at the video can see what it’s like to walk through your library or sit in a lecture hall. They can travel the various pathways and see the different sights of your college campus. 

Modern camera technology allows you to capture high-definition video that can prove just as immersive as the real thing. There are also 360-degree cameras if you want to incorporate the video into a VR setting. 

9. Sample Video Lessons

Sample video lessons are a good way to tease your different forms of education. An educational video could be a live video session or pre-recorded lessons. You could always showcase one of the college’s pre-recorded lessons so prospective students can see what they look like. 

This is also a good option if you want to showcase some of your professors’ teaching styles. 

10. Share Past Research and Projects

Colleges are known for a lot more than just educational content. They also facilitate all kinds of research, projects, and technology development. 

Create a video that showcases some of these different things that are created at your college. This video content can boost your university’s image and entice prospective students from all over the world. It could even attract some philanthropists who want to sponsor some events on campus. 

For example, some universities are well-known for their large medical facilities and laboratories. They would do well to make those parts of their campus a focus for some of their video marketing and blog content. 

11. Live Stream Events

School events are a great way to gain attention at your college, but they aren’t very accessible for people who live further away. As such, you can live stream events such as graduation ceremonies and concerts for both current and prospective students. It’s also a useful option for families and alumni who can’t be there for the day of the event. 

If you want to start live-streaming events, you’ll need to figure out what platform to use. Sites like Twitch are made specifically for streaming, but more people have YouTube accounts. All you’d need to do is make the stream private and accessible to only people with a certain link. 

12. Financial Aid Guides

Something many students may struggle with when they first go to college is how to get financial aid. It’s especially difficult if their parents never went to college and have no prior experience acquiring it. 

One way to make the process easier is by devoting a few videos to financial aid and how it works. Make it a walkthrough on what websites to visit, what information to have on hand, and where you can go on campus to acquire it in person. 

Additionally, you can interview students who have utilized financial aid in the past to help normalize it. That way, there won’t be students stressed out about using aid or struggling to work multiple jobs that may negatively impact their education. 

13. Share Unique College Features

If you want your college to stand out from the competition, then you could always share some of its more unique features. 

For example, your campus may perform a lot of research. It would benefit you to focus on that aspect and show in video format some of your achievements in a field of research.

Colleges with successful sporting teams always make sure to talk about their current members and their past victories. You could always fill up their associated web pages with video content just about their teams. 

Maybe there’s a dining hall with plenty of vegan options. Even if your vegan population isn’t that big, it still shows that your college cares about nutrition and health. 

14. Tour of Local Sights and Sounds

Promoting your college online isn’t just about focusing on what happens on campus or in the classroom. Video content ideas can include exploring the area around your school. 

You could make a video tour of the local college hangout spots, like the boba shop just off campus or the most popular pizzeria. Alternatively, you could talk about if there’s anywhere to go clubbing or museums that students can visit. 

Some of these videos can be shot in a vlog format to give them a more personal aesthetic. Invite students to show off their favorite hangout spot on your social media pages. 

15. Social Media Trends

It’s important to pay attention to social media trends for a couple of different reasons. First of all, they’re great to use as video content ideas. Second, you’ll often get a lot more attention from them as people will often look up related videos. 

For example, TikTok is currently one of the most famous social media platforms out there. You can find hundreds of different ideas by scrolling through the recommended videos. Colleges can jump on the bandwagon and post videos of their students performing some of these trends. 

If an internet trend gets big enough, you may even find that your video content goes viral. That means people are sharing it very quickly on all kinds of different websites. 

16. Utilize Local Influencers

For those who aren’t as well-versed in social media trends, you can always rely on influencers. Social media influencers are people who have gained immense traction and popularity online. Their followers care what they say and do, and that means they’re great for promoting businesses, products, and more. 

Find some local influencers that have graduated from your college who may want to promote it. You could have them shoot video content on your campus, or you could simply have them give a shoutout in a few of their videos. They may also be incorporated in a video about alumni if they have a particularly strong internet presence. 

Try Out New Video Content Ideas

It can be a risk to switch things up when it comes to your video content ideas. However, at least some of the ideas in this list should help you get started. After all, there’s a lot you can do with video depending on your resources. 

Local Finder can help your college grow and thrive with our vast array of marketing services. We offer developed brand strategy, strategic consulting, video production, and more. Reach out to let us know what kind of professional support you need.