Since the launch of the first five ‘Think Kent’ lectures on 9 December 2015, the number of subscribers to the University’s YouTube channel has increased from 1,732 to 2,400 (as at 5 April 2016), an increase of 38.5%.

Not all of these additional subscribers were a result of the ‘Think Kent’ videos, but there is a sharp spike in the number of new subscribers once all of the Think Kent lectures were published and our advertising campaign was running.

‘Think Kent’ videos are among the most viewed content on the University’s channel: Heejung Chung’s lecture, published in December 2015, is the 7th most viewed video out of all the publicly available videos on our channel. There are a further six ‘Think Kent’ videos within the top 20 most viewed videos on our channel. Many users are also adding the Think Kent videos to their own YouTube playlists.

The lectures have attracted viewers from around the world, with particular international interest from the US, Italy, Japan and Ghana. Many of the videos are also above average at retaining viewers compared to other YouTube content of similar length.

In addition, the videos are being published on the University’s Facebook page (two each week) and have proved popular with users, generating a large number of views, likes and shares.

Dr Anthony Manning, the University’s Dean for Internationalisation, said: ‘Sharing Kent’s academic excellence with the wider world is an important part of our internationalisation programme. The sharp rise in views of our ‘Think Kent’ videos across many different countries is therefore highly significant.’