Helping UK universities recruit Chinese students with TikTok

Natives partner with TikTok (Douyin) for Chinese student recruitment

Student marketing agency Natives has announced a partnership with TikTok China (Douyin) to help UK universities recruit Chinese students.

TikTok is a social media app that allows users to share short videos and was the world’s fourth most downloaded app in 2018, beating Snapchat and Instagram.

The partnership will allow Natives’ university clients worldwide to engage with Chinese students at a local level via their preferred social media platform.

Aaron Zheng Wang, China Marketing and Media Manager at Natives, said: “This partnership between Douyin and Natives will bring quality targeted enquiries from Chinese students which is why we are so excited to bring this news to the education sector.”

Natives’ student marketing platform, Akero, connects with TikTok (Douyin), so that when a student enquiry comes via TikTok it is automatically added into the university’s own CRM system.

TikTok was created in China and has become the global social media phenomenon of 2019, where hundreds of millions of young people create and share short musical and comedy videos every single day.

The top two mainland Chinese universities by QS World Ranking, Tsinghua University and Peking University have nearly 3.5 million TikTok (Douyin) followers between them, demonstrating it is a key channel to reach the traditionally difficult Chinese student market.

Natives and TikTok China have spent the past six months testing with eight UK and US universities/colleges to ensure the partnership was ready for launch.

Phillip Gray, Director of International at York St John University said:

“The Natives’ China team have been extremely helpful. We couldn’t have generated the volume and quality of leads without their insight, knowledge and experience, especially from Douyin/TikTok.”

Natives is a student specialist marketing agency and trusted global partner to over 600 institutions, as well as governments and agencies. Natives have helped recruit and influence millions of students from over 150 countries. Using their 10+ years of student marketing experience to reach students in the right place, on the platforms they’re using, at the right time, and ultimately help universities to enrol more students. As part of their partnership with Douyin/TikTok, Natives provides a comprehensive managed advertising service from initial audience research and account set up through to creative, optimisation and reporting.