A recent discussion in Reddit’s EducationBusiness community asked a simple question: How do colleges reach students who scroll past almost everything they see?
While the “90%” stat being tossed around in that thread is 100% anecdotal, the conversation reflected a very real challenge for enrollment teams. Earning attention online has become significantly harder for a variety of reasons, from the proliferation of AI-generated content to waning attention spans. For institutions marketing themselves to prospective Gen Z and A students, it’s never been more important—multiple studies find that 80-88% of young people use social media as their primary source for news, new information, and advice. And we now know that social media algorithms and organizations do their best to keep audiences scrolling and on their platforms.
Colleges and universities aren’t only competing with other higher ed institutions for attention but also with the internet at large. Higher ed content is appearing between a friend’s vacation photos, a viral TikTok, sports highlights, creator content, breaking news, and whatever meme or trend is dominating feeds or “For You Pages” that day. In that economy, the question isn’t whether your content stands out more than other schools’, but whether it’s compelling enough to stop a student from scrolling period.
Fortunately, you don’t need to manufacture outrage or chase every internet trend to stand out, but you do need to recognize that attention is earned differently than it was even a few years ago. Below we’re sharing the tactics we’ve seen used to effectively stop that scroll.
Suggested Tactics for Stopping the Scroll
Earn Attention Before Asking For It
Many institutional posts assume someone has already decided to care. They lead with the name of a program, an event announcement, or a campus update, expecting prospective students to click simply because the information exists.
But that’s not how today’s prospective students consume content online. Before students invest time in your message, you have to earn their attention. Here’s an example:
Instead of leading with, “Learn about our engineering program.”
Try something that sparks curiosity or promises immediate value, like, “Three things every engineering major wishes they’d known before freshman year,” or “The biggest myth about majoring in engineering.”
See the difference?
In one, you’re assuming the student already cares. In the other, you’re giving them a headline that potentially provides value. Once you’ve got that attention (and, actually, provided the value), that’s when you can start telling them more about yourself—you’ve earned the opportunity to tell your story.
Breaking it down this way, it seems like marketing 101 (nurturing students instead of starting with a hard sell), but for whatever reason, social media still seems to confound many enrollment teams, and thus, we forget marketing basics!
The Return of the Listicle
Remember listicles? For a stretch of the early social media era, it seemed like the internet (or more aptly…Buzzfeed) had collectively decided that every conceivable topic could—and should—be organized into a numbered list. 17 Things Only ’90s Kids Understand. 10 Signs You Chose the Right College. 23 Dogs Having a Worse Monday Than You.
Eventually, the format became so ubiquitous it practically turned into a punchline. But listicles work, and they’re making a comeback.
Part of what makes lists so effective is that they establish a clear contract with the reader. Before you click, you know what you’re getting, approximately how long it will take, and that you can probably skim it if you want to. There’s a defined endpoint—research shows that predictability and scannability are part of their appeal.
That doesn’t mean every admissions post needs to become Seven Reasons You’ll Love Our Dining Hall. But there’s a useful lesson in the format for higher ed marketers trying to stop the scroll: make the investment clear. Three things to know before filling out the FAFSA tells a student both what they’ll get and roughly how much attention you’re asking them to give you. In a feed where everything is competing for that attention, that can be a pretty compelling bargain.
Make Content Useful Before It’s Promotional
This one might seem like just another version of the previous insights, but in a different font—as the kids say on socials these days, iykyk!—but we think it’s still worth mentioning. Students are far more likely to engage with content that helps them solve a problem than content that simply promotes an institution.
Examples include:
- Dorm packing tips
- Common FAFSA mistakes
- Campus visit checklists
- Questions to ask on your college tour
Content like this provides value before asking for anything in return. By helping students navigate the college search process, institutions build trust—and trusted institutions are more likely to earn attention when it’s time to tell their story.
Show People, Don’t Tell Them
Prospective students have become remarkably good at recognizing marketing language. Claims like “welcoming community,” “hands-on learning,” or “supportive faculty” appear on nearly every college website (we wrote about this in our Gen Z and Gen A pieces—these students don’t want to be able to tell they’re being marketed to!).
Instead of telling students what makes your institution special, show them. Feature students helping one another study, faculty mentoring outside the classroom, behind-the-scenes moments from campus life, or candid conversations that reveal your culture in action. Make them stop scrolling by showing them something compelling.
We also wrote about this recently regarding campus photography, but it’s also relevant here across mediums: authenticity has become a competitive advantage. The more your content reflects your institution’s personality, values, value-adds, and unique experiences, rather than simply describing them, the more likely prospective students are to believe—and remember—what they see.
Embrace Authenticity Over Polish
Highly produced content isn’t automatically more effective. In fact, based on research (such as this MIT study, which found that students engaged much more with informal talking-head videos than with polished, professional-looking productions), students often respond more positively to content that feels genuine, unscripted, and created by real people.
A student sharing their move-in experience on a phone can sometimes be more compelling than a perfectly lit promotional video because it feels authentic rather than staged. The same is true of a professor explaining why they love teaching, a resident assistant giving an impromptu dorm tour, or a student ambassador answering common admissions questions without a script. None of these moments need elaborate production to be effective—they just need to feel real (before you put them…on a reel).
This doesn’t mean institutions should abandon quality. It simply means they should prioritize credibility over perfection. Prospective students want to see what campus actually looks and feels like, not just the carefully curated version.
Create Curiosity Gaps
One of the easiest ways to earn attention is to create an information gap—a headline or opening that makes someone want to know what comes next.
Instead of giving away the entire story upfront, invite prospective students to keep reading or watching with prompts like:
- The One Mistake We See Students Always Make On Campus Tours…
- What No One Tells You About Your First Week In College
- Three Things You’ll Want to Know Before Move-In
- The Questions Every College Admissions Counselor Wishes You Asked
These genuinely create curiosity. What question should you ask admissions counselors? What should you know before move-in day? What mistake should one avoid on a campus tour? You have to click to find out. It’s a tactic we take with our own content:
- The Enrollment Metric Higher Ed Gets Wrong (What metric? How do they get it wrong?)
- The Opportunity Higher Ed Often Overlooks (What opportunity? How can one not overlook it?
- AI Is Raising the Stakes for Campus Photography (How? How do higher ed institutions keep up?)
The goal isn’t clickbait or making promises you can’t deliver. It’s creating just enough curiosity to earn another few seconds of attention—and then rewarding that attention with something genuinely useful.
Talk Like a Person
A surprising amount of higher education content sounds like it was written—and approved—by a committee.
Compare, “we are committed to fostering transformative educational experiences,” with, “we want you to love it here, and to love learning here.”
One sounds like institutional copy. The other sounds like a person.
Part of the problem is that institutions often feel compelled to work mission statement language into student-facing content. There’s certainly a place for your mission, but lofty language about transformative learning, lifelong leadership, or global citizenship doesn’t necessarily mean much to an 18-year-old trying to picture what their life on your campus might actually look like.
It’s something we’ve written about before: higher ed marketers can easily end up creating content they—or their colleagues and superiors—would want to read rather than content designed for the audience they’re actually trying to reach. Before publishing, it’s worth asking: Does this sound good to us, or does it actually mean something to them?
The more your content reflects the way students actually speak—and the way real people naturally communicate—the easier it is to build trust and capture attention.
Optimize for the First Three Seconds
Inc. recently released an article—eliciting curiosity…—with the title Why Most Marketing Content Fails Before Anyone Even Reads It (Why do they do it? Why does it fail? What’s the failure catalyst?), and a key part of the piece is knowing the 3-30-3 rule:
- You have 3 seconds to grab someone’s attention.
- You have 30 seconds for them to glance it over after those 3 seconds are up.
- If they start reading, you typically have 3 minutes for them to read it, if, as the article points out, you’re lucky.
Whether it’s a video, social post, or even an email, the opening matters disproportionately. Those first few seconds—or first few words—often determine whether someone keeps reading or moves on.
Before you publish, ask yourself one simple question: Would three seconds be enough to make me stop scrolling for this?
If the answer is no, rethink the opening. The strongest higher education content earns attention immediately, then rewards it with something worth watching, reading, or sharing.
Give Every Piece One Clear Job
Trying to accomplish everything usually accomplishes nothing. The best content has a single, well-defined purpose.
Maybe it’s to make someone smile. Maybe it’s to answer one question, inspire a campus visit, introduce a program, or encourage one click.
When every post tries to inform, persuade, entertain, and convert all at once, the message gets diluted. The clearer the purpose, the stronger the content—and the easier it is for your audience to know what to do next.
Remember What You’re Competing Against
At the end of the day, prospective students aren’t comparing your latest Instagram post to another institution’s. They’re deciding whether it’s worth interrupting a feed’s worth of content to read or watch yours.
The good news? Colleges don’t need bigger budgets or flashier campaigns to stand out. They need a better understanding of how people consume content today. Because before a prospective student can fall in love with your institution, they have to stop long enough to notice it first.
