7 Higher Education Trends to Know for 2022

Higher education is now well steeped in digital marketing to reach prospective students and their parents. Institutions that lag will need to increase their use of social and online platforms to help them achieve their admissions goals. Here are key trends that will continue through 2022 and beyond:

1. Social is integral to reaching Gen Z. Staying abreast of which social media platforms your prospective students use allows you to focus your marketing efforts for maximal impact.
2. Short video has power that continues to grow. Cisco predicts that 82% of online traffic will be video by 2022. But attention spans are short: videos under 90 seconds long see audience retention of while those over 30 minutes retain only of the audience, according to a report by HubSpot.
3. Data analytics and AI help refine the user experience at all stages of student engagement. You don’t have to be a data scientist or software engineer to implement processes that make sense and increase your engagement with prospective students from all walks of life.
4. Conversational and interactive content increases personalization. Connecting the features of your digital presence to your actual conversations with prospects can increase your contact with students.
5. SEO and website ranking remain crucial to higher education. High-quality content that informs and engages will help boost SEO.
6. Hybrid events and user-generated content mix it up for Gen Z. Events can now so easily be streamed that there is no reason ever to stop streaming, which increases accessibility to prospects near and far. In addition, user-generated content from students, staff, and alumni increases the perceived authenticity of marketing, making your school appealing to Gen Z prospects who are very attuned to influencer-like marketing strategies.
7. Omnichannel marketing integration magnifies the impact of your efforts. Bridging the divide between different marketing venues allows you to reach prospects in multiple ways, especially using digital advertising on social media platforms and integrating these efforts with website and personal interaction.

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