March 3, 2021

Why Your University Needs Virtual College Tours

Virtual college toursare now expected from college-bound individuals when researching and deciding where to continue their education.

Colleges either suspended or altered their tours in 2020 to follow the health and safety codes during the pandemic. However, institutions used videocampus tours to showcase their school to prospective students. They were thus able to successfully give a glimpse of student life and campus facilities.

Virtual college tours helped solve many issues in 2020, but they aren’t just trends. In fact, these tours are now standard resources for prospective students. Virtual campus tours offer students an alternative campus visit instead of having to travel to a university.

Do universities still need campus tours?

Yes! Universities that offer virtual college tours and in-person tours will most likely save their admissions team time and money during the application process.

Looking at photos on social media or on a university’s website doesn’t provide the same information they’d get if the tour was a video or an in-person meeting.

Campus tours give students a better idea of what the environment, activities, and facilities are available to them.

Student’s that take an in-person or virtual college visitcan ask questions, interact with current students via video or in-person, and gain a deeper understanding of the University.

Picking a university involves various factors, one of those being how they feel about a school. Virtual school visits let students envision themselves there, settle any hesitations they may have, and introduce them to necessary resources.

Offering virtual college tours will serve your university best if you use them as a research tool rather than a final decision-making aid.

How to create the best virtual tours

Creating a virtual college tour does not require hiring a professional videographer to fly a drone around campus. Admission departments can create personalized videos that help attract and retain student’s interests.

Some of the best virtual tours tailor their videos to include a student’s specific interest like sports facilities or an academic building.

Combine standard video tours with personalized videos to create the best virtual campus tour. You can do this by using tools like Covideo, a video messaging software.

Through Covideo, your team can record, share, and track your virtual tour videos. Through the merge feature, you can combine videos of the facilities, dining halls, and dormitories.

Unlike professional videos, you can take these videos from your phone through the mobile app and upload them to your Covideo account.

See for yourself with a Start a free trial! You don’t even have to input a credit card.

Use Covideo to create a campus virtual tour

Virtual college tours for students can be recorded and sent out by the student tour guides. Not only are these videos more personalized than a professional drone video, but your campus virtual tour video will alsoengage your viewers and provide a point of contact.

Covideo is exceptionally user-friendly. All videos recorded or uploaded to an account can be emailed, texted, embedded, and posted on social media.

After you record virtual campus tours, your team can upload the videos to your account and start sharing them.

From Covideo’s web-based application, you can email, text, post on social media platforms, or embed your virtual tours to an email campaign.

The beauty of using a video messaging platform is you don’t have to compress or attach the video to any email or text. All you have to do is copy and paste your Covideo into the body of your message. A video thumbnail will appear like the one below!

Once a prospective student clicks on the eye-catching gif, they are taken to a custom landing page with your virtual tour, clickable CTA buttons, and your school’s branding.

Make every experience with your University, virtual or in-person, memorable and informative.