Case Study: University of Southern Queensland (USQ) launches Australia’s first Student Social Hub and doubles student engagement with Sitecore

How the University of Southern Queensland Created Australia’s First Student Social Hub

USQ (University of Southern Queensland) needed to improve the online student experience for a highly distributed student body—more than 28,000 students with over 70% studying online—and to showcase growing volumes of user‑generated content and social interaction. To build an online community that mirrored on‑campus engagement, USQ chose the Sitecore Experience Platform (Sitecore) as the foundation for a dedicated Social Hub.

Built within Sitecore with design and development support from Guerrilla Digital, the Social Hub used the Sitecore search API for dynamic content filtering, cookie‑based “My favourites” functionality and an accessible custom YouTube player; it launched on 14 July 2014. Sitecore’s platform helped USQ nearly double social reach and engagement—Facebook fans rose from 25,254 to 59,280, Twitter followers from 1,291 to 2,369, and YouTube views climbed from 194,809 to over 600,000—significantly increasing student interaction and reducing isolation among remote learners.

USQ

Helen Nolan

Executive Director of Marketing and Student Attraction