How higher ed institutions use day-in-the-life videos to market to students

By Ruba Hassan | Sept. 27, 2023

With students back from summer break and lockdowns long behind us, higher ed institutions can finally focus on showcasing what their campuses have to offer, from strategic locations to state-of-the-art facilities to vibrant student culture and more.

One way schools are doing this is by capitalizing on one of the most popular contemporary media formats: short-form video. They are allowing their students to be the voices and faces of their campuses through day-in-the-life videos. Borrowing from the concept of daily vlogs, this video genre allows audiences to follow a student as they go about their day on campus while promoting the institution and its offerings.

Producing social proof

Day-in-the-life videos are essentially testimonials from current students. Higher ed institutions collaborate with student ambassadors or marketers to create them. The format allows students to share their own stories and communicate the value their school offers to prospective students in their own words.

Creating authentic experiences

Shooting day-in-the-life videos doesn’t require any heavy or professional equipment. A phone camera is usually enough. This low technical barrier means that student ambassador recruitment becomes much easier. The more natural resulting clips also feel more relatable and authentic, allowing the audience to imagine themselves in the student’s shoes.

Feeding curiosity

Day-in-the-life videos can be used to answer questions and share snippets of campus life that many new and prospective students might be curious about. By sharing parts of their day with the audience, student ambassadors get to highlight academic programs, study spaces, nearby eats, extracurricular activities and even career prospects their degrees open up.

Catering to short attention spans

These “mini-vlogs” are usually less than a minute long, packing so much information in such a short amount of time without being overwhelming. They are also easily sharable and can be posted on popular short-form video platforms such as TikTok and YouTube Shorts, which tend to be popular with a large portion of prospective student audiences.

Toronto Metropolitan University

To welcome students back to campus, TMU shared via TikTok a day in the life of a marketing student during their first week of school. The student shows bits of TMU’s lively downtown campus, her marketing classes, and even behind the scenes of a shoot for another TikTok. Through this short clip, the student got to promote TMU’s campus, its programs and the work opportunities available to student marketers on campus.

Brock University

A Brock University visual arts student shares a day in her life finishing school projects and meeting deadlines. She also got to showcase the supports and facilities Brock offers students. The student shares a glimpse of the student lounges that can be used for studying or working on assignments. To get the equipment needed to finish her project, the student also uses the school’s printers and rents photography equipment for a photoshoot.

University of Waterloo

Waterloo co-op student and social media marketing specialist took the audience behind the scenes of a day in her life. The student shares mundane parts of her day: her morning routine, work tasks, eating, going to the gym and ending her night by watching Netflix. This casual and relatable video is a subtle way to promote Waterloo’s co-op programs.

University Canada West

UCW took a different approach with its day-in-the-life video, opting for a longer, professionally shot iteration of the genre. The two-and-a-half-minute clip follows a UCW MBA student on her hour-long scenic commute to campus, riding Vancouver’s SeaBus and enjoying the gorgeous views, and even stopping to capture the beauty on her phone. The student then goes to class and shows her favourite study spaces on campus. She ends the day with some leisure activities, visiting an on-campus arcade and a nearby aquatic centre for a swim. The video showcases that UCW has everything, from a scenic location to academics and recreation.

Toronto Metropolitan University – international students

Finally, another example from TMU, this time geared towards international students and building a sense of home. This day-in-the-life YouTube Short follows an international student as she visits study spots, attends classes and grabs “a taste of home” for lunch from a local food truck. The video also shows the student attending a campus networking event and going to her internship to highlight the career-building opportunities TMU provides. To tie it all together, the video ends with the student returning to campus and calling it her “home away from home.”