Showcasing your campus digitally: developing an innovative virtual tour

Katie Connolly

Digital Marketing and CommunicationsManager, University of Birmingham

What we’ll cover

• Why a virtual tour is important• Case study from Birmingham –

o our challengeo process: from initial research to launch

• Questions and discussion

Why a virtual tour?

• Universities are places• Campus influence on identity• Campus/space vs course, reputation• A differentiation factor – your USP

The challenge

• How can you represent your campus and University digitally?

• How can this be done in a way that is easily communicated to prospective students?

Our challenge

• What do you do when your campus looks like this…

What we had

• Website, YouTube and Flickr• Rapidly growing social media communities

with positive sentiment• Open Days – 50% more likely to accept an

offer from us if they have visited campus first

What we looked at

• Off the shelf, ‘fixed’ solutions• Animation• 360 panoramas• Campus maps

What we got

• In November 2012 invited three Birmingham agencies to pitch

• Launched our new Virtual Tour site in April 2013

What we got

• A bespoke virtual tour site • Social validation• Live broadcast capability• Google api

Our virtual tour site

• The ‘365’ site:

• Google maps and streetview

• Our own high quality 360 panoramas

• Instagram and Twitter posts from students and prospective students visiting campus – social validation

Our virtual tour site

• 365 site - virtualtour.bham.ac.uk

Our virtual tour site

• The live site:

• Live video streaming

• Live Q&A

Our virtual tour site

• Two UG Open Days broadcast live online in 2013

• Hugely successful bespoke live Open Day for North America region in 2014

• Global live Open Day planned for November 2014

Our virtual tour site

• Taking the best – and most translatable – parts of the Open Day experience online

Some results

• 50,000 people have visited our virtual tour site since launch

• 2,000 visitors to our first live online Open Day

• North America live Open Day – 245% increase in applications

Where next?

• Version 2 – multiple campuses/locations

• Ring-fencing and targeting content

Summary

• Find your University’s biggest challenge and biggest asset

• Don’t box yourself in – find a solution that can grow

• Use technology to your advantage

Questions and discussion

• What does your University currently have?

• What assets could you utilise?

Thank you

Katie ConnollyDigital Marketing and Communications Manager, University of Birmingham

k.connolly@bham.ac.uk

@connolk