The student voice is at the heart of all communications at the University of Birmingham, and its Student Shapers scheme is integral to achieve this. This session is an opportunity to learn how insights from the scheme are used to develop engaging content, and how you can keep it real in your comms to current students.

This session delves into student sentiment gathered by The Student Room community. Discover practical insights into student pain points and communication gaps, empowering you to elevate engagement, support, and satisfaction with your messaging. We’ll also be joined by University Official Reps who will share their perspectives from their firsthand interactions with students on The Student Room.

We have a goal to communicate with our students. But we’re not the only ones. Our students’ unions (SUs) have the same goal. Only, for our SUs, students are more than just students. They are members, constituents, voters, customers, volunteers. For this reason, our SUs have a more diverse communications portfolio than our own. They still use digital tools: website, emails, vlogs, social media… But they complement these with offline methods: events, forums, drop-ins, flyering, petitioning, campaigning. This mix of online and offline, digital and door-knocking, creates a potent portfolio of student communication methods that showcase best practice in experience design (XD). Perhaps it’s time we thought like a Sabb? In this session, Simon and Mikki will draw upon their experiences as former SU Sabbatical Officers (Sabbs) and current HE communications professionals, and blend their thinking with Rich, an SU marketing and communications professional. Their session will: • Provide you with examples of SU communication tactics, both those similar to our own and those which are more unorthodox. • Reflect on the strengths of these approaches, then suggest lessons that we can apply in our own university-led student communications. • Present the immersive concept of experience design (XD). This can offer a holistic communications experience for our students, and our SUs might just be the best place to seek inspiration. Let’s move forward with an SU mindset to deliver engaging and impactful student communications. After all, you can’t spell “communications” without an S and a U.

Jonny will discuss City, University of London’s approach to student Welcome communications last year, how content was adapted across different channels, how students were involved in the content creation process, how central communications engaged with Schools and what learnings the student communications intend to take into this year.

Communications runs through universities like a stick of Westcountry rock. From apps to emails, to 1:1s, comms are also crucial to the student experience. How do we make what we say to students more compassionate, and what does this even mean? From delivering difficult messages, to communicating within large complex institutions, there are plenty of challenges to creating Compassionate Communications - but these are far outweighed by the positives of improving the experience of our students. In this participation session, the University of Exeter shares its journey so far and welcomes insights from others taking part in this event, so that we can all learn and move forward together.

Find out how the Florida State University (FSU) Division of Student Affairs Office of Marketing and Communications teams up with departments across the university to create a vibrant student success communications campaign. The welcoming “Hello FSU!” campaign has sparked student engagement and consistent branding while using a multi-channel communications approach. Session participants will walk away with fresh ideas to help unify messaging, grow brand recognition, and increase awareness of important student resources. We’ll also explore tools to create easily shareable branded content and automated AI infused messaging for students.

We have reserved a table under CASE Europe at the Old Joint Stock Pub, 4 Temple Row West, Birmingham, B2 5NY , for those wishing to meet up before dinner.