The first vital part of my project, was to survey University of Brighton students to find out what it was they wanted to see from the content being provided to them by the Brighton Student's Union. Below is a sample of the results that I accumulated from the survey. If you would like to see the full report of results, please contact me.
Findings & Research
From the response to this question, you can see how often students are engaging with the content produced by the Student's Union. As the majority was 'very infrequently,' this is something that I really wanted to focus on for my project, being able to get people engaging with content frequently, that is both interesting and relevant to them.
The response to this question did shock me, as I knew Youtube was popular, but I didn't realise that so many people watched it every day. This was something that was really interesting to me, as it supports the idea that video content and digital media really is a popular trend at the moment, and something that young people are most likely to engage with. This then gave me the confidence to produce my own Youtube blog series for the SU.
One of the questions asked, was to get an idea of what it was that students really wanted to see from the content that I was going to be creating.
From the results, I decided to go with
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Dealing with mental health
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Tips on becoming Vegan and How to be Mindful
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Money Saving Tips
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Living in Halls Experience
I decided to pick these topics not only because they are the most popular, but also because I feel that they are current and relevant student issues.
During my research, I decided to look into what other Student Unions were creating for their social channels such as YouTube.
St Andrews University was the first I researched.
They post a range of things from information about Student Union Elections, fundraising socials and revision tips.
I found that they have a series called Wellbeing Wednesday that focuses on student experiences, where students are interviewed about different topics- such as what to expect from uni life, how to balance social time and studying.
However, the videos were fairly formal which is something I discussed with the Brighton SU- they wanted to find a way to move away from casual content that was formally dressed.
An example of their content can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80SfugCRW68
Loughborough University was a fantastic example of content that was brilliantly engaging. They really have got it. And by it I mean they have really thought about their content and it is fantastic.
This particular video titled Where do you do it? Starts with sensual and suggestive music while a number of staff, students and even Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones talk about ‘where they do it.’
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Not only was this video really funny, but it had me watching until the very end- which again is something that I really wanted to be able to create in my own work.