7 types of video that universities need

Author: Sam Willet | Posted on: 2 May 2019

At Ember, our clients are like our children: we don’t have favourites.

One of the clients we work with most frequently though is Birmingham City University. Over a long relationship, we've built up a lot of experience in producing videos for higher education, as well as a varied catalogue of work, which I'll showcase in this post.

Higher education is a sector which provides lots of opportunities to use video in a variety of beneficial ways. For us, the bonus is that they also offer subjects which allow for a bit more creativity, which tends to produce handsome results (if I do say so myself).

Below is a list of seven different types of video we’ve done for BCU recently, with examples, and a few notes on why they’re worth doing. Hopefully, this will be of interest not only to those in the higher education sector, but to people in other industries who may face similar challenges, or could benefit from seeing some different styles of video. So then, in no particular order:

1) Student profiles

Benefits:

Sets expectations on the student experience 
Showcases the different types of people you can meet whilst studying
 Provides an opportunity for a light-hearted, humourous piece of content 
An opportunity to show off the facilities and the surrounding area.

2) Calendar clips for social media

Benefits:

Perfect micro-content to fuel social media accounts 
Attaches some personality and character to the organisation.

3) Cinematic promos

Benefits:

Ideal for showing off any new, high tech or unique facilities
 High production values reflect the quality of your brand.

4) Event videos

Benefits:

Shows how the university challenges its students outside of lectures and seminars 
Shows the added value given to students (eg, course connections with employers)
 Inspirational and exciting, particularly for younger students
 Promotes future events.

5) Interview-led promos

Benefits:

Ideal for promoting courses or departments to prospective students
 Provides details of the student experience
 Can provide an emotional hook via use of testimony from current students.

6) Instructional guides

Benefits:

Can reduce the amount of incoming queries 
Ideal content marketing - you provide the customer with something useful, and as a result they feel positive about the idea of using your services.

7) Animated explainers

Benefits:

Scripted video provides greater control over messaging
Illustrations and on-screen text can deliver more complex information and ideas to the viewer in a clear and simple way
Animated videos can be particularly useful in aiding decision making.

If these examples have inspired you to embark on a video project, please contact us by emailing [email protected]

Author: Sam Willet

Sam is a Producer and Client Manager at Ember Television. He has worked in online media since graduating with an MA in Film and TV from the University of Birmingham, and loves a good human interest story. You can contact him at [email protected] https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=294919697&authType=name&authToken=k-zK&trk=prof-proj-cc-name https://twitter.com/ember_samw