Market intelligence for international student recruitment from ICEF
25th Apr 2018

Are you paying enough attention to Instagram?

Most recruiters have learned to make good use of social channels to reach and engage prospective students. But social is a pretty fluid space, and the popularity of individual platforms shifts regularly. Yesterday’s must-attend online spaces can sometimes feel a bit too “yesterday,” and the rules of engagement between brands and students are often in flux as well. For marketers, this means that social media strategies need regular tune-ups to keep pace with fast-moving and mobile audiences. And these days there is no better example of this than Instagram, a photo and video-sharing service that was first launched in 2010 and subsequently acquired by Facebook in 2012. In the years since, all Instagram has done is grow – and explosively at that. By late 2017, the service was reporting a base of 800 million registered users and an astonishing 500 million daily users. Growth over the last two years has been especially dramatic – with the user base growing from 500 million in June 2016 to 800 million just over a year later – and this has put the platform squarely on the radar of recruitment marketers. While the service was born in the US, Instagram’s reach is global. Roughly eight in ten users are based outside the US. As the following chart reflects, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Russia, and Iran are among the leading countries for the platform in terms of numbers of active users. instagram-user-base-by-country-as-of-april-2018 Instagram user base by country as of April 2018. Source: Instagram, Statista

Students are heavily engaged

The 2017 edition of the Hobsons International Student Survey rates Instagram as one of the key social channels for mobile students – after only Facebook and YouTube. And the newly released Voxburner Youth Trends Report for 2018 follows this up with findings from its most recent survey of British youth. “[Instagram] is officially the go-to platform for teens and young adults,” says Voxburner. “43% of our survey respondents post on Instagram at least once a day and 31% would admit to being obsessed with the social network…62% feel a brand’s [Instagram] account is very important, with 45% agreeing that it has the power to change their perception [of the brand].” As these findings suggest, the user base skews young. Six in ten US users are under the age of 30, and US teenagers rate Instagram as their second most important social network (after only the equally visual Snapchat). Current research also suggests that users are intensely engaged on the platform. One recent analysis found that higher education institutions record, on average, ten times the interactions per post on Instagram that they do on other major platforms, including Facebook or LinkedIn.

Keep it simple…and beautiful

For any recruiters aiming to start or step up their presence on Instagram, the consensus around the platform is that the most effective posts are simple, beautiful, and, as always for youthful audiences, authentic. Any casual sampling of Instagram accounts of institutions and schools around the world shows an imaginative variety of approaches that showcase campus facilities, cities and regions, and students and alumni. And this perhaps expresses the real power of Instagram as it relates to international student recruitment. One of the things we’ve learned about the role of social media in the student journey is that prospective students look closely at institution and school accounts for clues. They are looking for an idea of what life and study will be like if they choose your programme. And they are searching for students that look like them, that they can relate to, and that can help the prospective student to see themselves as a good fit on your campus. Holding that perspective in mind opens up a wide variety of options for using Instagram to send these important signals to prospective students: showcase your campus, your city, the view from your window, students in classes, your faculty in action, and your alumni’s achievements. For more great examples and ideas about how to put Instagram to work in your international recruitment effort, please see:

Most Recent

  • New Zealand announces strong foreign enrolment growth along with a new international education strategy Read More
  • The surging demand for skills training in a rapidly changing global economy Read More
  • US issues corrected student visa data showing growth for 2024 while current trends point to an enrolment decline for 2025/26 Read More

Most Popular

  • Which countries will contribute the most to global student mobility in 2030? Read More
  • Research shows link between study abroad and poverty alleviation  Read More
  • Beyond the Big Four: How demand for study abroad is shifting to destinations in Asia and Europe Read More

Because you found this article interesting

New Zealand announces strong foreign enrolment growth along with a new international education strategy Following a post-pandemic surge in 2023, Education New Zealand (ENZ) announced this week that the country’s international student...
Read more
US issues corrected student visa data showing growth for 2024 while current trends point to an enrolment decline for 2025/26 In April 2025, we reported that foreign enrolments in the US had declined by -11% between March 2024...
Read more
Survey finds US institutions expanding agency engagement and focusing on new student markets AIRC (The Association of International Enrollment Management) and BONARD have just released a second edition of the State...
Read more
Canada’s language sector buffeted by policy changes in 2024 Amid reports of mounting job losses and programme cuts across Canadian education, the country’s language education providers are...
Read more
Canada: List of non-degree college programmes linked to post-study work rights has changed The Canadian government is continuing its policy of linking eligibility for a post-study work permit (PGWP) – at...
Read more
US administration revives proposal to limit terms of student visas The Trump administration has given notice of a proposed rule change that seeks to limit the term for...
Read more
How have changes in policy settings impacted international student recruitment at Australian universities? Over the past couple of years, Australian universities have been operating within a policy framework that makes it...
Read more
New analysis sounds a note of caution for UK immigration reforms Within the UK’s higher education system, there are a group of institutions known as “Post-1992 universities”. The term...
Read more
What are you looking for?
Quick Links