Do you know who can sniff out fakery and inauthentic content in a heartbeat?

Students. 

Specifically, today’s university students who’ve grown up with social media permeating almost every aspect of their lives. This is the TikTok, Snap, and Insta generation, and they’re savvy enough to spot anything that isn’t genuine.

This group is difficult, if not impossible, to BS. Plus, they’ve also become jaded by the mere prospect of higher education. They know the costs of a degree have skyrocketed, and it doesn’t automatically guarantee a great career and salary. This means student recruitment has become even more of a challenge for colleges across the nation. And that’s why the students of Thomas Jefferson University provided their own User Generated Content (UGC) during a two-week trip to Malawi. 

A 2022 Approach to Student Recruitment Videos

Times have changed and colleges nationwide are having to adapt just as fast. Old-school (no pun intended) recruitment videos, with an emphasis on slick production and scripted scenarios, feel dated and aren’t connecting with the target audience. 

So, when it came time to create a video that would really make a difference to the recruitment efforts, Thomas Jefferson University became laser-focused on content that would work. And the architecture students’ two-week trip to Malawi was the perfect setting to create a video that would really resonate. 

The response from the architecture students was incredible. They incorporated capturing videos into their daily routine, and they captured over 650 clips ranging from preparation and travel to their learnings and experiences in Malawi.

The students downloaded the Cinebody app on their iPhones, and within minutes they were able to shoot and upload their very own footage to the cloud. And what they captured was the kind of raw, real, and reliable footage that’s impossible to ignore. 

The finished video is exactly what prospective students are interested in. Not super-polished and “Hollywood,” but something genuine from the mouths of people just like them. They get it straight from the source, learning about the way the university works, what experiences await them, and why Thomas Jefferson University is the place to be. 

The UGC Blueprint for Colleges Everywhere

Other universities have also been early adopters of this powerful UGC approach. For example, when the University of Central Florida wanted to bypass the usual approach to recruitment, it turned to its students for that authentic look at life on campus, to great effect. No crew needed. No scripts. No ungainly production costs. 

Colorado Mesa University has also championed this approach, blending traditional on-set crews with UGC content to create a powerful video worthy of the name Making Mavericks. 

To sum up, it’s not often you are given a look into the future of your industry with success built into the strategy, but this is one of those rare opportunities to embrace the change. UGC is the future of recruitment, and that future started yesterday.