Blog
Pickle Jar’s creative Christmas communications round-up 2016
What has the education sector been doing this year to spread the festive cheer? Find out in this year’s creative Christmas comms round-up.
Tactics to create and maintain motivation in your student content team
Pickle Jar CEO, Tracy Playle, shares the sector’s and her own personal insights on how to keep your student content creation team engaged.
Engaging Chinese audiences through video
Video continues to grow here in the West, but how does it sit within the climate in China? Altman looks at how you can engage your audiences with video.
Our guide to algorithms: Facebook
Your Facebook feed may seem simple enough, but there’s something important going on under the hood. We take a look at algorithms and how they affect the content we consume.
Communicators in education: we really need to get our shit together
We are currently tackling a climate of anti-intellectualism. Our CEO, Tracy Playle, talks about how we as communicators in education need to find a voice to fight back.
Engaging alumni in China
Alumni relations is a relatively new concept in China, so how can you engage with your past students? Altman shares his favourite best practice examples.
Dr Diablo’s terrible tales of horrible copy
Prepared to be spooked and grossed out as John shares terrifying examples of terrible content, with tips on how to avoid falling into the same trap.
Why you should be creating content for Instagram Stories
In her latest blog post, Rosie looks at why it’s important to create new content for Instagram Stories instead of repurposing from Snapchat.
What does Donald Trump teach us about brand perceptions?
As we become immune to some of the ridiculous things stated by Donald trump, what can he teach us about brand perceptions?
Pickle Jar favourites: student blogging at its finest
Sparked by a question asked on Twitter, the Pickle Jar team discusses their favourite student blogs delivered by universities.
Social media trends in China
With more useful information from Kantar’s social media report, Altman helps you understand how the Chinese population is using social media.
The university Twitter Olympic medalists
The Rio 2016 Olympics have come to an end with all medals distributed, but how did universities with representatives fair on the social media podium?
Pickle Jar’s 2016 Clearing round-up
Find out what tactics and strategies universities used to entice prospective students on a-level results day with our Clearing round-up.
Kantar’s 2016 report: key points to help with your WeChat content strategy
Altman pulls out key points from Kantar’s 2016 Report on the Impact of Chinese Social Media to help guide you on the best content to post on WeChat.
The value of measurement
Influenced by a trip to the IVF clinic, Robert looks at why it’s important to measure our progress and how to get started.
The medium is the message. Or is it?
Our Head of Strategy, Ellie Lovell, takes a look at online publishing platform, Medium, and discusses why it could be right for your institution.
Chinese social media: should you be making friends with Friend?
Our in-house Chinese social media specialist, Altman, takes a look at the latest emerging platform in China, Friend.
Nine ways to use virtual reality in higher education marketing and communications
Virtual reality has boomed since the start of 2016, so how can higher education marketing and communications pros take advantage of this new trend?
Six visual tools to help you create stunning images
It’s been proven that images help drive more engagement, so we show you the tools to help you create stunning visual content.

