Elevate Your Video for Higher Ed with John Azoni

Speaker 1  0:00  
You're listening to filling seats, the state of enrollment marketing in higher ed, hosted by StudentBridge. In this podcast, you'll learn what's working to grow, shape and sustain enrollment at colleges and universities directly from fellow enrollment marketers, thought leaders and Ed Tech innovators. 

Host  0:18  
Hello and thank you for joining today's episode of Filling Seats, Episode 49 Don't adjust your sets. It is the holiday period, so we are in festive mood here at StudentBridge, and so looking to jump into the call today, although the video cast and podcast today with our special guest John Azoni. Today, when we talk about research and analytics that give us the evidence of what videos are working when it comes to engaging your audience in higher education, John, before we even get into it, give us a little bit about yourself. Give me some background, please.

John Azoni  0:51  
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for Thanks. Thanks for having me. I'm been doing video production for coming up on 15 years now, I kind of stumbled into it on on accident. I went to art school and started making videos of of me making, you know, big paintings when I got my first MacBook back, you know, in like, 2004 2005 or something like that. And realized i i liked editing, and just had fun with that. So YouTube was just coming out, so I was playing with that, and eventually stumbled into a job at a production company and just kind of learned everything I know from from the ground up. I didn't go to film school or anything, but we had a, we had an a couple of higher ed clients at that company, and kind of got, I got to know sort of the unique needs of higher education. So when I started Unveild in 2021 decided to make the jump into just the higher ed niche and focus on those types of institutions and storytelling for them. So, so that's that's what we do today.

Host  1:57  
That's cool. Thank you. Thank you. Sometimes learning in the fields the best way, right? There's a there's a good theory based and there's a good practical base, and you've got to bring them both together. So that's awesome. We're talking about what's working in higher ed video. And of course, you know, hopefully our audience has some of the Marcom leaders in space as well as maybe deans of enrollment, VPs of enrollments, and they're going, Gosh, I just need more effective content. There's lots of content around the average, the average American Gen Z is watching two to three hours of short form content a day. So we're just we're just overruled, overwhelmed by content. What do you think the biggest driver is when it comes to video engagement?

John Azoni  2:37  
I think it's just whatever, whatever is resonating with, you know, whatever, I think it's matching the the intent of what the user is going on that platform to do. And I think that's where a lot of higher ed goes wrong is, you know, maybe they're trying to sell to a group of people that are just scrolling and looking for funny stuff, you know. And so I think, you know, on Tiktok and Instagram and stuff like that, it seems like the entertainment type of, type of stuff really, really drives a lot of engagement and things that are just interesting and and sort of novel, novel stories and things like that. So kind of like top of funnel content, we see that working really well on, you know, short form platforms. Long Form more so on YouTube's main, you know, channel. But I think it's really just comes down to matching where they are, where a prospective student is, you know, in their journey, in the funnel, or whatever, and matching content to kind of what they're on that platform to consume.

Host  3:46  
That's right. When I have a saying that I've used for 20 years, right content, right device, right time. Now might be right content, right channel, right time, but it's about making sure that absolutely this, this the student engagement, of the student search and selection process is a two and a half, three and a half year journey. They're jumping in and out at different times. They need different things at different times. So when you when I talk about engagement, give me your definition of short form. Long form.

John Azoni  4:11  
Short form. I look at short form as vertical, you know, for instance. And then you know that could be usually under, usually under a minute, if it's, if it's like, you know, I don't know, two minutes and under, I would still consider that that short form, as long as it's vertical. I think when I think about short form, I think about Instagram reels, Tiktok, YouTube shorts, Facebook reels, that kind of, that kind of, those kind of quick

Host  4:38  
vertical, your mean portrait shot 90 degrees up, kind of doing it that way Exactly. Yeah, yep, yep. And then you got the traditional landscape type wide, wide screen experience where you look at the end of the day, your eyes are left and right, not up and down. So, so the short that the vertical way we hold our phones is great for certain things, but it's much easier to watch video site in a in a width versus a height. 

John Azoni  4:59  
Yeah. For sure. Yeah, I mean, if you're on your phone, you're probably just scrolling, and you're probably just looking for a quick hit. You're probably not looking to really sink into something really long and get and intense. And I think that's where the short form platforms kind of really come into play with those vertical, vertical the portrait formats. I think it for videographers, it presents a unique challenge, where you can't, it's hard to film. You can't, it's hard to film landscape and portrait at the same time. So So you really have, you know when, when we're when we're filming, you know, stories and stuff like that. We have to kind of be thinking about, how is this going to translate to a short form platform. Should this institution want to create shorter snippets? So we're thinking about things like, okay, let's, let's frame them a little wider. Let's, let's, you know, zoom the camera out a little bit so that there's room to kind of crop in. Yeah. So, yeah, it's an interesting challenge. I mean, when I was, when I was, you know, like 2000 I started video in 2010 and we didn't have the vertical format. It wasn't just a we were trying to force horizontal videos into into, you know, a vertical iPhone around like 2016 2017 ish, we started to see vertical really being embraced. And, I think, and then, you know, there's an uproar from from people who are, you know, videographers, like, like, please stop filming your videos vertically, you know, like, it doesn't work like that. And, but now, now we've seen the pendulum shift to being like, Okay, this is just a this is a part of our culture. We need to kind of get used to intentionally making decisions to frame things, you know, portrait mode.

Host  6:47  
Yeah, you're talking something very close to us. It's content to have a strategy behind it. Just one of our good colleagues, Lori Kirksted, said, has a company called Content uncomplicated. It's just no more random acts of content. And when the problem is that people go out there and just think hitting the red button on the camera, making a video and sending it out ticks a box, right? I made a video this week, but there's no strategy behind it. I say the video nine. We used to call it video 90. You quit vertical, but, but a good video 90, vertical. Video, landscape. Video, like, if you're not thinking how you want to use it, when you want to use it, what platforms you have deployed on the video itself is just the piece that's kind of it's the piece moving along. It's all these other parts that are required to make it effective, right? What do you think the biggest challenges? Let's talk about some challenge before we get into the meat of your kind of seven steps, but all the seven different types. But this is a challenge for universities and colleges nationwide, and we speak to some student bridge makes a video. You make video, we speak to some that have way better production facilities than we do way better. But there's a difference. So what's the biggest challenge you're finding

John Azoni  7:54  
Challenge in terms of just creating videos, or creating videos at scale, or,

Host  7:58  
yeah, both. I think it's like, what challenge, what? What are the challenges you're witnessing from the institutions, the universities and colleges? What challenges are they facing, getting the right content out at scale?

John Azoni  8:08  
Gotcha, I think, I think a big challenge starts at the leadership, you know, executive level. And I, what, I what I hear a lot, and just pulling my audience and and having one to one conversations is that marketers are having a hard time getting leadership or just key stakeholders to embrace a modern video format or a modern, modern way of making videos, which is a little more entertainment, a little more storytelling, Less infomercial, less like news broadcast. So I think, you know, I have a call with somebody that reached out to me the other day. I have a call with someone after this, after this recording, who asked me there, she's like, we're having trouble getting our, you know, our content creators and our just the people that are, that are, you know, putting out marketing content in various departments to make that shift from a more news mindset to a more like narrative storytelling mindset. And how do we do that? So I think that's a that's a that's a common problem that we see in leadership, not really understanding the value of video or or understanding it, but misunderstanding how long it takes for there to be results. So I think, you know, we see a lot of short sighted videos being created, and I think that's what, what, what has floated to the top in this research that we did with these seven themes is like, it's really, there's, there's a lot of noise about like, here's why we here's our school, here's what we do, here's why it's great, here's why you should come here. And the stuff that's floating above that is this more unique, novel stuff that's that's just different, that's just just more engaging. And so I think that that's the go to with, with video, with a lot of college leadership, is like, well, let's just talk about. About what we're offering. Let's pitch to Let's pitch to students. And that's great. Like I think you definitely need that like you that's a bottom of funnel approach. You need bottom of funnel, you need mid funnel, and you need top funnel content. But I think there's, there's a lot of I think the biggest challenge is just leadership, seeing the value in bottom of funnel type of content, a more direct sell, not seeing the value in more top of funnel content, yeah.

Host  10:27  
Again, right content, right device, right time. You've got to create the right content, because at the top of the funnel, you're competing against 30 different institutions, just buying for attention. Do you know about me? Do you know about me? Buying for attention? And that's what we call the awareness stage. Then you move down. Now it's like the relationships kind of already started forming. Now you need to inform them and nurture them and make them feel safe and secure. And there's just a different mentality. They're just different tone and tempo, especially when you see that video content. I mean, higher education is highly successful. I mean, stats show that viewers would take like 95% of video messages, compared to only 10% when reading text. So we know videos hugely successful. Let's start talking to your seven categories, special forming videos, four to seven categories. Thank you for doing this research, but talk us through it.

John Azoni  11:13  
Yeah. So we, we wanted to find out what was, what was working in higher ed video, obviously, and that's what we titled The, you know, the landing page, and the in the in the webinar, but, but so we set out to find, like, what's, what's, what's getting a lot of engagement, what's getting a lot of views, shares, that kind of thing. So our benchmark, you know, for for data, was sort of around 100 and 1000 views at least, and looking for at least 50 comments, at least 100 likes, and then produced within the last five years. We originally had it within the last year and and then as we kind of expanded, we and we had a set, a smaller set of videos that had floated to the top. But as we expanded this, we felt like, Okay, we need to kind of go back, because there's some, there's some, there's some really timeless videos that have come out Harvard Business School is one that have gone, you know, viral, but maybe were done like, three years ago, but that's that approach would still work today, you know. So

Host  12:17  
can I have a Can I have a respectful debate on viral video. You may, I don't know which, which, which, um, group you sit in. Yeah, my concern of viral video is quite often you remember the fun of the viral and you think it's getting your brand out there, but maybe you just enjoy, maybe you just remember the fun versus the actual bro, like you could. I do remember that video where the person did this, and you go, No, I did see it. Didn't see it. You're not talking about, actually, the brand that's presenting it, right? Where do you what's your thoughts on viral video?

John Azoni  12:49  
Yeah, I don't think it's, I don't think it should be the goal. I think it's, it's nice if you know things do go viral, but I think it's more important to talk to the right student with the right message. You know, you know, for the

Host  13:03  
go, it's a positive, it's a positive follow up.

John Azoni  13:06  
I think the I think the the more focused you get your target audience, the less likely you are to go viral. And you should be okay with that, because, like, I'm, I'm, you know, as a higher ed videographer, I have a podcast, and then i i make videos for like YouTube shorts and tiktoks and reels and stuff like that. And this is something I think about a lot, because I'm like, I see all these other, you know, people going viral, and I feel like, your FOMO, like, you know, I'm missing out. Like, am I not doing something right? But then I always have to reel myself in and go, Look, my audience is higher ed marketing directors and CMOS, that kind of, that kind of thing. There's not millions and millions and millions of them out there. So the idea that I'm going to get a million views on something that's only relevant to a college marketing director people is just not it's just not realistic. And so I think, I think it's important to think about viral in terms of over performing and underperforming. So there's a really great book out right now. I'm looking at it on my shelf by Gary Vaynerchuk, day trading attention. And he talks about, really, a light bulb went off for me when I read this, because he talks about, you know, here's your average content, you know, maybe your average video gets 200 views, then your underperforming content might get, like, I don't know, 50 views or something like that. But then something that's over performing might get 2000 views, and that's okay, like, that's like, that's going viral for you. You know,

Host  14:39  
it's a multiple of what's average,

John Azoni  14:41  
right? So it's so I think it's more. I think, you know, historically, we've thought of viral videos as been like, if it's gotten like, 30 million views, you've gone viral. Congratulations. Here's your medal. And I really think we need to dial that back and go what let's think about in. Terms of over performing, what can we do that's going to resonate with our specific audience? And we're going to know it resonates because it's over performed. If, if you've gone massively viral, it's likely that you have a message that applies broadly to a large audience and and probably most of those people are irrelevant to your bottom line, you know. So, so I

Host  15:26  
think I know, I know it took us on a on a segue there to, uh, to viral. But I think, look, you and I sound like we, we think about this the same way. So I hope any listeners or watchers are tuning in, thinking, look, you know, just, just don't have so much focus on the viral. Virality Is that even a word be thinking about like True, true effectiveness of the people you do actually reach versus the people that share it and think it's fun. So So look, let's talk about the seven categories they. Let's go through it. You're gonna kind of read them out one by one first, and we'll deep dive into each one. So what are the seven,

John Azoni  16:00  
yeah. So the first one is arrivals and departures. So in, you know, acceptance letters, you know, documenting, you know, giving acceptance letters or documenting the emotional moments of of leaving school, commencement speeches and things like that. The second one is thought leadership, or thought provoking insights. Third one would be man on the street videos, which, which are just, you know, those, those quick videos of just someone holding a microphone and asking somebody a random passer by, just like an engaging question. Fourth one would be what we call campus vibes, of just different ways of showing off the campus and the value of the environment in unique and novel ways. Fifth one would be tech in labs, and that's, you know, either tech that students have access to to learn from, or is tech that's being developed at the school. Sixth one would be trends. You know, there's a million trends out there, you know, and they change on a daily, weekly basis, but those are important to keep up with as part of a strategy that shouldn't be the entire, you know, say, Tiktok or YouTube short strategies to just post trending stuff, but that's, it's, that's part of it. And then the the seventh one is just the Day in the Life videos. And these are actually long form videos. So the these in these categories are a mix of short form and long form. So those are, those are the seven categories.

Host  17:24  
Got it? Okay, well, let's, let's dive into it then. So go a little bit deeper on the arrivals, departure. I mean, so you explained it's about graduation, commencement, those kind of things. So how are these produced? I mean, that's a big stage situation, how, how do you suggest the these are produced? Yeah,

John Azoni  17:41  
and there it's a, it's a mix. And honestly, like, well, in in the, in the case of this theme, these are very Lo Fi then, and people can look at, if you go to unveild.tv/higher Ed video, you can see all these examples to see what kind of the production quality of each of them unveiled is spelled U, N, V, e, i, L, D, but the first one here is like New York University. Scott at the time of writing this, our time of putting this landing page together, had 663,000 views, 313 comments and 26.5 1000 likes, and it was just a compilation of user generated content, of, you know, which, which is just students filming themselves, you know, opening their acceptance emails and then just freaking out, you know. And it's set to these, this, like, sort of emotional trending song. And so it's just a compilation about, you know, nine or 10 of these that went pretty viral for NYU. And then you go over and look at University of Michigan Go Blue. That's where I live. And they their top performing Instagram reel was also the exact same concept, just user generated content set to this, this particular song and and just these high, high emotional moments. So that's, that's just a winner, like, I mean, I kind of, if I could, like, point to a video that it's like, if you do this, you will probably take off to some degree. I would say that's, that's probably the one like you could, you could just copy and paste that and, and

Host  19:20  
that's very much like an emotional but shorts kind of on on social media. It's done by the person. It's UGC, user generated content. It's very it's very much from the student to the student. Like my announcement, my broadcast, absolutely. Yep. Yeah. Got it? Okay, yep.

John Azoni  19:36  
So then, you know, there's some other examples here, but on the on the departures side, Lubbock, Christian University has 5.3 million views on this one video, and it's just these three girls. It's like a split screen. They're they're walking into, they're into the school in their normal clothes, like on and above it, it says 2019. So this was their first day of freshman year, and they're walking out in their ceremony outfits in 2023, this was filmed on the same day. They just changed clothes, cool, but and then, and then wrinkles up, yeah. And as wrinkle Yeah. And as they pass each other, it cuts to them like looking at each other, like looking they're acknowledging their future selves, and then, and then they keep going. So it's kind of hard to explain over, you know, over a podcast, but this is but that, that is another example of that, sort of like, here's how it started, here's how it ended. Has performed really well for other schools, so moody, College of Communication. They're a really great school to look at for inspiration, but they did something similar that went pretty viral for them too. Well.

Host  20:46  
We know that. We know that students are looking for outcomes, like, what will I become? The emotional connection look can't be It can't be ignored, right? 90% of our students are emotional based on emotion. So having an emotional connection helps incoming students who are in tune and comfortable, and that's something that these videos obviously do. Okay, great. Can we move along to the kind of thought leadership videos, please? Yeah,

John Azoni  21:09  
absolutely. So. So, you know, taking a look at, like, sort of a long form approach University of Colorado Boulder did this very simple experiment about what happens when you flush the toilet with the lid up, and they put this like glow light. So like, as they flush the toilet, you could see these particles blasting everywhere. It's absolutely disgusting when you frightening, when you think about that's what's happening in your bathroom every time you flush. So

Host  21:40  
I do tell my kids not to leave their toothbrushes out in the bathrooms. Oh, for sure. It came from that. Came from my sister. I never thought of it. She goes, yeah. Why do you need toothbrush? Good point. So there you go, right, yeah, another handy tip, right, don't leave your toothbrush out. But yeah, it's

John Azoni  21:53  
a two, you know, two and a half minute video. It's got over half a million views, over 200 comments, almost 2000 likes on YouTube as a long form video, and it's very simply done, and it's just saying, like, Hey, here's a relevant topic. Like, everyone brushes their teeth. Everyone has a vested interest in not having gross things on their toothbrush, you know, so? And it's just a simple experiment, and it's sort of a light bulb moment for people to go, Oh, I didn't, because you don't see these particles going everywhere, so you just like, Oh my gosh. I didn't know that. So that that went really viral or or over performed, I would say, for them. And that's a that's an example of something that I think any school can do. It doesn't have to be this real dense academic research about ecosystems and ecology or whatever. It can just be something like, Hey, here's, here's something that happens every day. Let's look at day life. Let's look at the science behind that.

Host  22:49  
Did you know, did you know, type stuff, right? Right?

John Azoni  22:52  
The other, yeah, the other thing would be like, you know, filming lectures. I think this is a, just a really low hanging fruit for for faculty, you know, giving presentations that they're going to give anyway. There's several examples here that we researched that that performed really well when it's really interesting research. So, you know, there's one about Jeff professor, Jeffrey Hinton, I think he's at University of Toronto, but he, but he has two different he has kind of the same lecture at two different, two different universities. The other one's University of Oxford, but he gives about the future dangers of AI. So he's gone. That's, that's that was over performed on both University of Toronto and University of Oxford's site, both long form videos. So that's just a really low hanging sort of fruit, a way of just capturing, you know, interesting content and just putting it. Could you just be putting it out there as is, or creating something a little more artful, cinematic about it?

Host  23:55  
Now, I think when we talk about length, short form, long form, and I know you brought in format change, we on StudentBridge. We do short form in the landscape experience as well. So we do create vertical 90 videos for for short form. But we believe in short form because that data shows psychologist Dr Gloria Mark 2004 he gets on to watch two and a half minutes. And this is actually funny enough. First time I've seen someone else say these stats, because I have these stats, we've been delivering video since 2000 so before YouTube was even invented, a company called RealviewTV and we could get somebody to watch two minutes of any video about anything, because they were just impressed that you could watch video on a computer. We're doing on dial up, John, dial up, I mean, 56k and now, like I said, two to three hours a day of Sure, the average American subjected to 10 to 20,000 ads a day is a huge number, constant messaging, constant messaging. And so we do have an inbuilt spam filter. Only notice 100 of them. But the average watch time now is 47 seconds, even for long for longer form content. And of course, you know, if you got a 25 second video, you can't get that long but, but this is. Really important when you're creating these thought provoking something I believe, and I want to know how you believe this. People ask us all the time, how long should my content be? I said it should be as long as it's interesting. Exactly. It was interesting for three minutes. Make it three minutes. Interested for two minutes. Do not make it three minutes. Do you agree with that statement? Make it as long as it is interesting.

John Azoni  25:19  
There's there's no such thing as a video that's too long, just one that's too boring, is what I say. And you know, I've seen it on both sides. I've seen, you know, I've seen a lot of the clients that I work with actually have this fear of being too long. And then, in doing so, when you have a story, a real narrative story. It's actually very hard to tell an emotional story in one minute or less. So like, you're really not doing justice to the person's story by cutting them off at the knees like that.

Host  25:53  
So just when you get to the big bit, sorry. End. Titanic, stop.

John Azoni  25:58  
Yeah. So, so it's just so make this, make it as long as it needs to be. But I think in general, top of funnel, if you're creating top of funnel content, that's going to perform better when it's short, because you don't have a captive audience. They're, they're scrolling, and they're and they're, they're, they're looking for interesting, entertaining stuff. And so you got to make your point quick. And as you get further down the funnel, I feel you have more and more leeway, because the mid funnel, you have a little more attention. They're aware of your brand. They're going to give you a little extra time if they're maybe deciding what college to go to. Bottom of funnel, you're probably on their short list, you know. And they're probably gonna say, you know, they're probably gonna

Host  26:44  
invest more time with you, right? Yeah, they'll, they'll

John Azoni  26:46  
spend more time. So I think, I think it just kind of just Matt, I think, I think not enough schools are really thinking or even understand the funnel strategy and the concept behind that, and how it applies to video. So I think it's just, oh, I'm

Host  27:00  
with you on that. Let's up this. Move on man on the street. This is something we've always loved doing as well. So man on the streets kind of unscripted and fun, just out there with a with a fuzzy microphone and pouncing on random strangers. But tell me. Tell me how you see man on the street. I do love this one.

John Azoni  27:15  
I this is one of my favorite ones. And if I was, if I had no money and I wanted a I wanted a great top of funnel content strategy. This is what I would do, just, you know, just grab someone or do it yourself, and just go come up with interesting questions you could even ask chat. GPT, what are some interesting questions that are going to get people debating in the comments or just creating an interesting moment? So there's two examples. One is Boston University, around Valentine's Day, they had a student go around ask other random students, like, Do you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend? And then do you want to call them and tell them you love them? And so they put them on speakerphone, and so their significant other would get this random call that was just like, I love you. And it was like, kind of this awkward, like, funny, cute moment, but it's got over 800 almost 900,000 views and quite a bit of comments and quite a bit of likes and shares. So that's just a really simple thing, just creating, creating a unique, fun moment that's relevant to the time Valentine's Day. Another one was Central Michigan University went around asking people, where's up north start? So Michigan, we have lower Michigan, Detroit area, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, that's where, you know, Detroit, that's where I live up. And then we have up north. So you go up to Traverse City, you

Host  28:33  
go up to the coast, one region, yep,

John Azoni  28:35  
all that stuff, you know, cherry, capital of the world, or whatever. And, but no one really knows where up north starts. You just sort of feel it. It's like the trees kind of change, and the vibe just kind of change as you're driving up I 75 so they were like, Where does up north start? And so is this debate on camera. Of you know, what city is it? Is it? Is it? Is it Claire? Is it one of these other, you know, West Branch, or something like that? And then in the comments, further debate. And people were like, No, I think it starts at this, because this is when this happens, and then all this stuff. So, so that was just an interesting example, just coming up with an interesting question that's going to get people in the comments and talking. And the

Host  29:17  
other advantage you said, like, if I had no money? I mean, obviously most universities claim to have no money, so man on the street, that the production value can be a little bit rougher, can't it? It's absolutely yeah, so good. All right. Campus vibes something I think student bridge really doubles down, and often I think you do as well. But campus vibes kind of what, what's my life on campus going to be like? I mean, these are incoming students are about to leave their parents basement or whatever bedroom they're gonna go and do their own laundry. Like, wanna know what their new home is gonna be like, right? So talk about campus vibes, yeah, and

John Azoni  29:49  
it's a little different. The one, the only example I have on here that's really kind of like a here's our campus, here's what you can here's the here's what's cool about it is Florida International University with. Uh, a video they did, like, things that you didn't know about. FIU, and it's, and they'll just go, it's just a montage of, like, just cool little niche places on campus that you could study or hang out with your friends or something like that. It did. It did okay. It got 165,000 views, you know, 40 comments. This fell short of our comment benchmark, but was worth including anyways, because I would say for most schools, still 165 views is pretty well over performing. But what's what's interesting is the schools that did something completely different. So University of Toronto showed off, they did a compilation of all the scenes from Good Will Hunting that were filmed on their campus. That was a way of of showing that off. And then moody College of Communication, who I mentioned earlier, 8.1 million views. All it was, was two clips. It's about a 15 second video. It was two turtles swimming in a turtle pond, and then then it cuts to a shot of these two turtles are sitting side by side on a rock and she put it to, she Liz each and their their social media manager, I put it to, like a dreamy sort of song, and kind of, kind of gave it an emotional feel, of like it's in the text on screen says, us in another universe. So it's, it's kind of this dreamy, sort of meta, like they could be best friends. They could be That's right,

Host  31:21  
in a different world, right? That's fun. Hey, you mentioned misconceptions of FIU long believed that video is a great way to answer misconceptions. So if you put misconceptions in a text, like, Hey, did you know about us? This is what we do. People will just scan it, scroll it, jump over it. But if you can gage on in videos, a great way to go. No, we're not. We did it with event space once they thought it's a baseball stadium. Thought they could only be rented during baseball events. No, we're great, a great venue for weddings, corporate office, parties, everything, all year round, even though the game isn't playing. It's like just the way to answer misconceptions is huge for some tech and labs. This is a one I thought was interesting. So kind of getting universities need to be thought of as forward thinking. Is that kind of, whether this drives from is, you know, you don't want to go to a university so last decade or last century? Yeah, it's

John Azoni  32:12  
where, where, where on your campus are. Is forward thinking happening? I think it's a good way to put it. UC San Francisco got about around eight, 8 million views on this one long form videos about five minutes long. And what they did was this, this. They, they did a story on this woman, I think her name's Anne, and she had a stroke, and she lost the ability to talk. And so they brought her in, and they hooked her up to these, they have this, this tech that they developed. They hook her up to these, you know, wires and and, long story short, they they can verbalize her thoughts. So she would think, like, Hi, how are you? And this, this like Avatar on a TV screen that she was hooked up would say, Hi, how are you, you know, and it was just, it's amazing to watch that, and not only that, but to see that students were involved in this. You know, students got to help develop this and implement it. So it's, I mean, you talk about a novel story, I mean, like a piece of tech that can read your mind. But yeah, that did amazing. And really, you know, the production quality is pretty good, but it's not like they hired a 20 person crew. I think it was just one guy talked to the to the guy that that that shot this. I think he's just one guy that just went around with the camera. So it's really about finding, where are those, where are those forward thinking things happening on campus. So that would probably be my example from that, that theme,

Host  33:39  
yeah, that that's very forward thinking. I know that our producers said, hey, look, you know, don't forget. StudentBridge crew went up to Antioch College in Ohio last month. Just a spotlight. The campus is working farm and learning laboratory and how it provides produce for the campuses, student dining halls and so, yeah, there's, there's forward thinking, outward tech, there's inward tech. There's, there's just getting involved in that to today's students tomorrow's future, isn't it? So, yeah, what are they doing to kind of like to innovate move forward? Let's talk about trends, trends and what was trendy yesterday's already changed, like you said. So trends change constantly. It must be hard to keep up with this one.

John Azoni  34:15  
Exactly. Yeah. I had to put a little note at the top of this landing page that, like, basically, like, we're not updating this every day, so this is so, but like these. So these trends on here, you'll find are a little bit past, but Wheaton College did the one that's like, you know, we're we go to Wheaton College, of course, we blah, blah, blah. So get married when we're 20. I think, what think someone said in the comments, like, because it's a Christian school, so they're like, of course, we get married when we're 20 years old. So that's, that's one of those. We are, of course, kind of, kind of videos, those did really well. This idea of a glow up. So. To Ohio State University. A glow up for people who don't know, is just like, you know, you you upgraded your style or whatever. So OSU showed a progression of their their mascot, the Buckeye, over the years, like from the 70s, you see how it, you know, change until now. And so it's and it was set to this, this kind of trending song, and so that did really well. And then 

Host  35:23  
algorithm things interesting. So obviously Tiktok will know what music you're playing in your videos. Yeah, and imagine two algorithms for the similar, similar beats and BPMs and song, right? So that that becomes consistent for the viewer. Is that what they're doing?

John Azoni  35:37  
Yeah, it's really and that would that was what we found that was surprising to us, was really like, kind of not that interesting concepts would be significantly amplified by using a trending song or a trending sound, you know, so one, one person at Bates College did just a dorm room transformation. It was just two clips. There's one like, here's, here's the completely bare dorm when I first moved in. And now here it is all designed. It's like, not like, it's like, okay, cool. But she put it to this, like, sort of trending song that was that really kind of amplified the transformation. And it got, like, 133,000 views. Again,

Host  36:21  
I'm gonna do another challenging bit here. These views on Tiktok. I watched my wife scroll up down when she's like, you know, just switch. The kids go to bed. She gets her own time just to do what she wants, right? She's looking for cooking most time. Like, kind of fun, like food stuff, kind of like on Tiktok shorts, whatever it may be. She doesn't know their crap until she's watched it, but she watched it, she goes, actually, that was just a great waste of a million my life, but it counts as a view. So this is kind of one of those weird things about this kind of trend. To get to get this much content out, then kind of almost the viewer has to watch it before making a decision. You don't know what it is to get into it. It's my point on a school website, you kind of know, if you click on a video about life on campus, what you're getting into I just scroll through these media, social media sites, you kind of just don't know what's coming out next. You just know they've picked an algorithm for you they think. But some data we saw on the trends, some trends are lasting only a few days to a couple of weeks, and that is short, right? Yeah. So what's your warning for university trying to chase these trends that we don't, they don't, they don't have resources to go and make content often. They don't have the money to go and bring in external people to make the content often. What's your warning on trends?

John Azoni  37:30  
I think, I think, don't, you know, don't put all your eggs in the trend basket. Like, like I said earlier. I think it's, I think it's, it's a it's, it's one part of a strategy. But don't mistake, you know, reels and tiktoks and YouTube shorts for being just a trend factory. Still say something meaningful. Give people some value. Once in a while, you know, experiment with some trends. But in and what I would caution people is this, this is where I think schools go off the rails in terms of, like, it's clear that a millennial or Gen Xer made this video trying to appeal to Gen Z or Gen Alpha kind of, kind of like, Oh, we're cool. We're cool guys. We're with the hip trends. You know, that's where you got to be careful. And what I suggest it's

Host  38:21  
like a grandparent dancing at a party, yeah, yeah,

John Azoni  38:24  
yeah. And so, so I've seen, I've seen it go both ways. I've seen, you know, schools do trends really well. And I've seen schools are just like, no, like, it's just,

Host  38:34  
would you not say it's fair they miss more than they hit? Or do you think they I mean, I see a lot of misses?

John Azoni  38:40  
Oh, for sure, I think. But that's the thing is, like, on Tiktok or reels, for instance, you got to think about it like, you're going to try a lot of stuff and a lot of stuff is going to fail, but it's like, once in a while you're going to hit the jackpot, and that jackpot is going to make up for all the misses. That's

Host  39:01  
fair. All right, so what day in the life? I mean, this is a day in the life's a big thing as well. We know that, again, students are asking that question. But there's the fun, there's that connection that, Oh, my God, this universe is fun and connected techs and labs and everything. And then there's this, what am I gonna become? Am I gonna be safe? Yeah, I'm gonna like, my life on campus, A Day in the Life. Let's talk about that one, yeah.

John Azoni  39:21  
And these are long form videos. And what's interesting is that they have so many views on them and so many comments. And they're, you know, in some cases, you know, 1015, minutes long. One is 20 minutes long. It's got almost 300,000 views, 211 comments. And I think, and it's just, you know, user generated is the theme here. So it's, it's students filming themselves in a in a day of the life fashion, going to go into class, putting their makeup on or whatever, studying whatever. But I think the key here is leveraging influencers with an existing following. Because what you'd know. If you look at these examples on the landing page, here is that these are done by influence. These aren't done from the main channel of the account. These are done by, you know, Caitlin lamb, for example, who apparently is a Harvard student, because she did this day in my life as a Harvard student, she has over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. So, okay, like, you know that so, but that's this over performed for her, though, you know, it's this wasn't just her average view. This was like, viral for her and just, and I think the key here is having students do this who have an existing following, and because, because people are going to want to watch anything that that person does, you know, like, he's just like, you follow this figure, this, this person and, and you're like, Yeah, I'll spend 20 minutes watching you put makeup on and talk about some random thing, you know, just because it's like, those are the influencers you follow, and you want to hear from them. So, so, but, but one interesting one was this guy, Ryan Chia from NYU. NYU has a lot of these Day in the Life videos that come out. He only has like four and a half 1000 subscribers. He got. He did one that was like, 1015 minutes long. It's got 286 comments on it. A lot of people are going like, wow, this is a great video. Like, I wanted to go to school in New York, and this answered a lot of questions for me, you know. And so you really see kind of like, what these videos are doing is they're answering a lot of burning questions that people have, like, through just watching someone's day in the life that are influencing where they go to school.

Host  41:32  
And so that when you're on social media, where you can comment and do those schools really watching the comments as well, because the comments are going to help them understand the questions the audience are asking, absolutely

John Azoni  41:44  
and Gary V talks about that in that day trading attention book that I mentioned, it's like, Don't sleep on the comments. Like the comments are like, great data for goal, for you to know what more what content to create more of what questions students are asking.

Host  42:00  
Well, good, John, I'm gonna start wrapping up. We could talk all day. I'm sure. Hand up. Sorry about the technical difficulties of well, we'll get that corrected. But sort of students want to know what it's really like to be on campus and a member of the community, we're saying short videos, short form videos, are ideal for capturing attention, quickly sharing campus highlights, showcasing student life on campus platforms or prospective students spend their time like Tiktok and reels, and just being with you need to be where the audience is your group, and that's kind of long form content we talked about, that deeper, slower, more meaningful, further down the funnel, top of funnel, bottom of the funnel. Content, your content is going to change as you try and write content right device, right time, talking to the student at different times. We also see long form content sometimes with process like, hey, helping someone fill out a FAFSA, helping someone know how to prepare for first day on campus, to join the affinity groups. I mean, just, just that kind of process, kind of support anything you want to add on those kind of like short form, long form type summaries? No, I think

John Azoni  43:03  
it's pretty accurate. And I just think, like, you know, the more niche the topic, the more the the more the more focused the audience. Could it be a niche topic or people that are further down the funnel, you're going to get a lot more time out of them. I mean, you got one video from University of Chicago, just like, three politicians talking for like two hours about about some boring political topic, and it has got just tons and tons of views. So I'm like, people are interested in that specific topic, are watching this whole thing so so that, I think that's really how you have to frame video length and format. But yeah,

Host  43:43  
yeah, no. Again, using that example, when you see the view, see the reviews, see the comments, you don't know the you might put out something that the world in general finds interesting. It may not be helping you meet your recruitment goals, right? So, right. So that's something to think about as well as when budgets are tight, don't just splatter content out there. You got to think of content that's going to move your audience to do the actions that you want them to do. Promote, promote the actions so and that's a converting down the funnel. So we have time for today, John. Thank you very much. Follow John on LinkedIn. Subscribe to his own unveild podcast. It's a great content as well. And for more great content, please visit StudentBridge at studentbridge.com you can search our archives with former guests, previous guests, previous webinars, we'd love to share, and of course, get in touch with that. John. Have a happy holiday season. And to our readers and leaders, our listeners and viewers, please have a great one too, and we look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks.

Speaker 1  44:43  
This is the filling seeds podcast hosted by StudentBridge, where we help enrollment teams achieve more by fusing authentic storytelling with industry leading technology and personalized digital experiences to connect with this episode's guests. Check out the show notes if you enjoyed the episode, leave a rating and review. And don't forget to subscribe for more information about StudentBridge and this podcast, go to studentbridge.com forward slash podcast.