Q&A: How student content builds belonging at King’s College London

At King’s College London, student voices are at the heart of community and engagement. One of the people championing that approach is Rosanna McNamara, Student Content Manager, who has been instrumental in shaping the Student Life Content Creators (SLCC) programme. This structured initiative gives students the chance to produce peer-to-peer content while gaining professional skills.

In this conversation, Rosanna shares how the programme was developed, the challenges and successes along the way, and why student-led storytelling is such a powerful tool for belonging.

Q: Could you introduce yourself and your role at King’s?

A: I’m Rosanna McNamara, a Student Content Manager at King’s College London. I’m part of the Student Content Management team. I oversee two key areas: life cycle events (including welcome and graduation), and community and engagement, which encompasses the SLCC programme and the fortnightly student newsletter.

Q: How long have you been at King’s, and what’s your background?

A: I’ve been at King’s for nearly 10 years now. I started as a student here. Alongside my Master’s, I interned at a gallery, which helped me secure a role at King’s after graduating. I began in the culture team as a gallery assistant, then supervisor, then programming assistant supporting exhibitions and events.

When COVID hit, that work shifted online. I briefly worked on the Civic Leadership Academy before moving into comms in 2021.

Q: How did the SLCC programme come about?

A: Before I became a manager, there was a student-generated content group,  but it was very unstructured. At one point, it had 300 students, which wasn’t workable. I saw the potential but felt it needed redefining. In early 2024, I put together a proposal to create a structured programme with a smaller core group of creators.

We piloted it from November 2024 to April 2025, providing content leads with training (including copywriting workshops with A Thousand Monkeys). After evaluating feedback, we made improvements and expanded it to run for nine months.

“We benchmarked against other universities, researched payment models, team sizes, content types, and platforms. I also reached out to a few universities directly to learn about their challenges. That helped us refine our own approach.”

Q: What challenges was the programme designed to address?

A: A big challenge is engagement with our comms – particularly the student newsletter. Open rates are decent but click-through can lag. Peer-to-peer content helps because students often prefer hearing from their peers rather than directly from the university.

“Our focus is on current students. We focus on belonging, retention, and engaging students once they’re here.”

The programme directly supports comms engagement, but more broadly, it contributes to the community. During the pilot, content from the programme consistently ranked in the top five most-clicked links. We’ve also seen strong results embedding student-created content into welcome campaigns.

Q: How is the content creation process evolving?

A: In the first year, we provided most of the briefs. That was very labour-intensive and didn’t always get the best engagement. This year, we’re moving towards a pitching model.

“Students will propose their own ideas within set themes, while still receiving some briefs from us. We hope this increases ownership and reduces workload on our team.”

Q: With so much focus on TikTok and video, why focus on written content?

A: Written content offers depth and context that short videos can’t. Students themselves wanted video, which is why we added it, but we see value in having a mix. Articles can be revisited, bookmarked, and provide a lasting impact, while social media can drive traffic to them.

“International student articles in our welcome comms were among the most-clicked links and provided real reassurance to new students. Engagement is important, but impact matters too.”

Q: What skills and benefits do student content leads gain from the programme?

A: Students get real work experience that they can put on their CV. As well as a whole host of hard and soft skills in creativity, project management, time management and organisation. They also get training in different areas, such as copywriting.

They’re compensated for everything, including training and inductions.

It’s like a freelance role, and we treat them like employees. They gain skills but also learn professional behaviours.

Q: Do most students join because they want to go into marketing?

A:  Some do, but we recruit across all faculties — not just media or arts students. For example, one of our standout video creators was a law student. His legal background didn’t stop him from excelling creatively. We encourage diversity because the programme is about representation and giving students space to explore different skills, not just train future marketers.

Q: Beyond practical experience, what broader professional and personal skills are students developing through the programme?

A: We’re providing the students with their first brief as a bit of a mentoring experience. That was recommended to us by another university. After that, although they’ll pitch us their own ideas around certain themes, we’ll work with them to refine those into a proper brief.

We also created a handbook, inspired by other universities. It’s a Microsoft Sway document covering the programme overview, expectations, confidentiality, glossary of terms, and practical guidance. It complements induction and serves as a reference. We don’t yet know how much it’s used — we plan to measure that in future evaluations.

Q: What value do external trainers such as A Thousand Monkeys add to the programme?

A: One challenge is getting students away from academic-style writing – they’re used to essays, but we want narrative, creative, and journalistic content. It’s valuable for students to hear from outside voices, not just King’s staff. External trainers bring creativity, perspective, and credibility. Students loved the copywriting training – it was a highlight in feedback.

Q: How do you measure the programme’s impact on student skills?

A: The content leads were asked to complete a pre-programme survey. This included asking them to rate their understanding and confidence in certain areas, such as creating high-quality and engaging content.

Once the programme finished in April 2025, the content leads were then asked to complete a programme evaluation survey. This survey was longer and about the programme, training and support.

Survey findings:

Every student mentioned the A Thousand Monkeys copywriting training in their feedback. They said it was ‘particularly useful’, ‘standout’ and ‘very informative’.

An average of 70% ‘strongly agree’ for positive feedback on training, with ‘The training facilitators were knowledgeable about the topic they taught on’ receiving 100%.

Q: Do the students themselves use AI when creating content?

A: Yes, though in very different ways. Some use it regularly, others avoid it. The challenge is ensuring it’s used responsibly. For instance, we don’t want students just pasting briefs into ChatGPT and handing us AI-generated articles. That undermines the point of the programme. However, AI can be a useful tool for editing or idea generation.

Q: Looking at the broader picture, what do you think businesses could learn from universities when it comes to employee or community-driven content?

A: That’s a fascinating question. I’ve only ever worked in higher education, but in some ways, universities aren’t so different from businesses. Students pay a lot to be here, so in a sense, they’re our clients. By involving them in content creation, we’re asking our clients to help us engage other clients.

“I think businesses could learn from that model. In just a year, we’ve learned so much about how students think, what they value, what they prioritise, and the challenges they face.”

Surveys and focus groups can provide snapshots, but ongoing collaboration offers richer, more personal insights. It builds a direct connection that helps you understand lived experiences.

For us, it’s not just about engagement metrics. It’s about genuinely connecting with students, learning from them, and building community. I think that’s something any business could take away and apply in their own context.