Natalia Rachiteleva, Ademola Familoni, Simon Firlefyn,

STUDENT Klaudia Kaniowska

[Email address]

AMBASSADORS
Contents
The ambassadors.......................................................................................................1
Field research.............................................................................................................1
Action plan.................................................................................................................2
The competition.........................................................................................................2
Who are they?............................................................................................................3
Creating awareness...................................................................................................3
Whats in it for them?................................................................................................4
Other promotional activities......................................................................................4
 Globalisation is the trend that affects every city these days.
In the last years, more and more students choose for studying
and making a career abroad.
The city of Ghent, with its numerous research facilities,
wants to attract talented, smart and ambitious young people
from all over the world. Thats why it needs student
ambassadors.
The ambassadors
The ambassadors are dedicated to establishing
connections, providing enrichment and spreading the word
about the advantages and opportunities of studying and living
in Ghent.
The Ambassadors share their student experience with
students-to-be, parents and friends in their home country.
Student Ambassadors play a crucial role in a wide range of key
recruitment and outreach activities including visiting days and
the varied widening participation and outreach programmes for
Gent universities and colleges around the globe.
Field research
Our team has conducted a field research in the campuses
and streets of Ghent. We have interviewed a dozen of
international students staying here, asking if they would be
interested in becoming an ambassador and how would they do
the promotional work for the city of Ghent and its educational
institutes.
The list of questions was as follows:
1. What is your name?
2. How old are you?
3. Where are you from?
4. How long do you stay in Ghent?
5. Why did you choose Ghent as study destination?
6. What do you think about internalisation facilities the
city provides?
7. Would you be interested in further promoting Ghent
and its universities when you return to your home
country?
8. How would you do it?
 All the answers we have received were really positive. The
students love the people and atmosphere, level of education,
facilities provided. A student from USA, Mailson, highlighted
that educational system at UGent is much more challenging
that in his home country, requiring a lot self discipline and hard
working.
A South Korean student, Woogi, mentioned several
advantages of Gent as a study destination:
Multilingual country
Central location in Europe
Beautiful and comfortable city with good
infrastructure
A student from Colombia, Herlinda, pointed out that not a
lot of potential students from abroad know about Ghent and
what it has to offer, thus they miss out on a great opportunity
to get a high quality education for a reasonable price.
Most of the students would love to become ambassadors
and share their experience and tips on studying and living in
this city.
When conducting field research, we have gathered a lot of
useful information from which we could derive an action plan
for the city of Ghent.
Action plan
We will aim at international students already in their last
year of studies in Gent. We would contact them during kick-off
sessions at their schools and universities in the beginning of
the year.
We would organise a competition between 2000
international students. We expect approximately 20% of them
to participate.
The competition
We would encourage the students to use different
marketing and social media channels to share their experience
and tips on studying and living in Gent. The students can write
blog entries, Instagram posts, Facebook posts. They have to
add hashtag #studyingent and #gentinternational to their
posts. The students will encourage their friends to share the
posts.
Blogs with most shares and likes and post with most likes
and reposts will be competing for the main prize. Top 10
bloggers, each representing a certain region,
East Asia (China, South Korea)
East Asia (Indonesia, Japan)
South Asia (India, Pakistan)
North America (USA, Canada)
South America (Chili, Argentina, Mexico)
North Africa (Tunisia, Marocco)
West Africa (Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana)
South Africa (South Africa)
Eastern Europe (Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Estonia,
Russia)
Western Europe (Germany, Italy, France, Spain)
will be chosen as ambassadors. Their responsibility will be
supporting, promoting and representing Gent and its education
institutes abroad.

Who are they?

While still students in Ghent, the ambassadors will be
expected to post new blog entries about their experiences in
the city. Topics covered should include:
1. The study part
Special features of the education system: group work,
examinations, study points system. To make it more enjoyable
to read, the blogger can share funny anecdotes from the class.
2. Fun part
Apart from studying, Ghent provides a lot of recreational
facilities: sports, going out, membership in student
associations.
3. Practical info
 City of Ghent needs to provide the bloggers with practical
information in English on everyday life in the city. The blogger
will use a link to the city website in his post.
E.g. how to get a bike, how to use public transport,
locations of container parks and so on.
4. Contact page
You can contact the blogger for some information via chat
or use a link to get in touch with a local official.
Creating awareness

Already during the competition, the bloggers will start to

promote their blogs by sharing it on social media and spreading
word of mouth. After they finish their studies in Ghent and
return to their home country, they will be expected to keep
blogging.
They are to contact high schools in their region, make
arrangements to give speeches. There they will be sharing their
experience on studying abroad with potential students. The
ambassador also has to be able to answer the questions after
the session. School administrations are to promote the blogs on
their websites, social media pages and at schools themselves.

That way, to build awareness, we will use 2 networking

channels:
Social networks friends, peer communication
International office school administration, B2B
communication

Whats in it for them?

The ambassadors work will be rewarded with virtual point
system. The top 10 bloggers will receive a starting points
budget. They can use the points for shopping on various
partner websites (amazon.com, giift.com).
The more active and popular the blogger is the more
points he will earn.
 The ambassadors will as well receive branded clothing from
the city of Ghent. One of our interviewees, Mailson, told us that
once he was wearing an Ugent t-shirt while doing sports. That
caused a lot of interest and was a great conversation starter.

Other promotional activities

Ambassadors could use their connection to school
administrations at home to carry out other promotions. They
could send flyers and brochures to be handed out to students-
to-be.
They also have to measure the level of effectiveness of
such campaigns.