University Face Off Competition Promoting UK Universities

What is university Face Off?

Take around 150 universities. Add a few million students active on Facebook. Create an exciting and engaging social media competition for students across the country to interact and support their universities. Host it within an online environment that is both familiar and addictive to the players. Incentivise participation with prizes. Call it University Face Off.

85% of 16-24 year-olds in the UK regularly use Facebook. Students love prize-winning competitions and earning bragging rights over rival universities.  Consequently, the 2012 competition has already gained 10,000 ‘likes’ and served in excess of 30,000 active users. The first annual tournament takes place from 16th January -  31st March 2011 and a number of prizes will be awarded to students.

How to play!

It's really simple. All you have to do is like the page then select your university from the options then follow 5 simple steps:

1. Like the logo
2. Comment (saying why you love your uni)
3. Tag yourself
4. Check the leaderboard for your unis position
5. Play along with the bonus games and keep and eye on statuses.

To boost their university up the Leaderboard, players must gain points by ‘liking’, commenting and tagging themselves on their university’s logo within the Facebook Page. Players can also gain ‘bonus points’ by supporting their university in other ways such as putting up posters and utilising Twitter. Using a sophisticated automated tracking system, the Leaderboard is updated daily to reflect the varying state of play.

As you can see on the right, you get 1 point for a like, 2 for a comment and 3 for a tag! Bonus points can be very rewarding.

What Prizes could you win?

At the end of each tournament, prizes will be presented to three students from each of the top three universities. Currently the prize for the number one university is that you could win an iPad 3! That's correct and iPad 3. This is one of the most exciting prizes UFO has ever had on offer with a value of around £500.

Exciting additional wildcard prizes from sponsors, such as a trip to Ibiza, are added when the Page meets certain targets. These are up for grabs by all players.

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Why was UFO developed?

British universities and students alike have been at the centre of a great deal of negative media attention ever since the protests last year. University Face Off rekindles a passion for higher education by encouraging positive support for universities.

The competition has proven to be not only a vehicle for students to better connect with their universities, but also be proud of publically supporting them.

Lead developer Jamie Akhtar said:

“Status and size no longer matter; this project is all about the community. Students often say that university is as much about the social aspect as academic achievements. So let’s provide a new way of ranking universities in a completely social way.”

Promoting British Universities

Social media is quickly becoming a key component of university efforts to appeal to their audiences. Thanks to the UFO platform, all universities have the opportunity to raise their profile in a new and engaging way.

This experiment has shown that whilst many institutions are using social media, there’s still a huge untapped potential. A strong presence on a platform like Facebook can be extremely powerful when combined with a wider marketing campaign to prospective students. Competing in the University Face Off has already proven highly effective in providing free and wide-reaching recognition for many British universities.