Studenti

Italian high school students will this year face quite different final year exams starting from 17 June. The health emergency means there will be extraordinary rules for the much-anticipated exams: the traditional written tests will not take place and all students will face an oral exam in a new format, in front of a commission on internal members, while respecting the social distancing rules foreseen by the MIUR.

And once again, supporting Italian students as they prepare the maturità will be Studenti.it, the Mondadori Group brand, leader in Italy in the digital area in the world of Education with over 4.3 million users per month according to Audiweb and a Facebook page with around 500,000 fans, and which, for more than 20 years, has been helping high school students to get through this important exam.

In recent months Studenti.it has continued to support students who have been kept away from school. With a wide offer of content on its web site and on social media, this has allowed students to have material available for distance learning and to continue their preparation for the final year exam, known in Italy as the maturità. Fundamental teaching resources in this time of virtual lessons, as is confirmed by an online survey made by the brand on a sample of some 3 thousand young people at the end of March. According to both the interviewees and teachers, all of the material available online and on the most common audio and video platforms and useful tools to facilitate distance learning.

Podcasts: new tools for students
The offer of resources and material on Studenti.it has been expanded with a new, practical and easy to use teaching tool: Te Lo Spiega Studenti.it, (Let Studenti.it explain) the brand’s exclusive podcasts for final year students. Every week, four tips focusing on the syllabus of Italian and History, to help students form all streams to revise ahead of the oral exam or an assignment with the main points of a topic or mini biographies of leading figures who have left their mark on history. In just five minutes you can revise an author like Cesare Pavese, a work like Il fu Mattia Pascal or a literary movement, such as the Decadent Movement. But you can also learn what was discovered by Marie Curie, who Charles Darwin was or what happened on 9 November 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down. To these can be added those dedicated to the guides for preparing the maturità, where, for example, students can listen again to how to analyse a text or the techniques for improving your memory of what you are studying.
The technology partner of Studenti.it in the creation of this new content is Spreaker, Italy’s leading platform for the creation, distribution and monetisation of podcasts, conceived for beginner and professional podcasters, and for publishers and companies who want to include podcasts as a tool in their communication strategy.
The Te Lo Spiega Studenti.it podcasts have already been reached 100,000 downloads per month 100 across all of the most popular platforms used by kids and are among the content recommended by Spotify and Google. A result that confirms that listening to audio series is now a fast-growing trend, even among the younger generations: in fact, according to Spreaker the average monthly listener figures for podcasts in Italy  has grown by 50% between December 2019 and March 2020, and podcasts linked to “Education” are always the most popular.

Growing numbers
With its material in support of the world of school, from background materials produced by teachers to conceptual maps, summaries of dissertations and exam guides to podcasts, Studenti.it was able to respond immediately to the need for distance learning in recent months and provide support for students facing the final exam.  The figures for April demonstrate this success and once again confirm the brand’s success, with an increase in traffic of 50% compared with the same period last year. In this period of virtual lessons it has been the teachers themselves that have suggested to their students the resources of Studenti.it and the boom in traffic shows that users recognise the reliability and authoritativeness of the available content.
Studenti.it has also again confirmed its position as leader in search engines for the most important keywords related to the maturità including, maturità 2020, maturità oral exam, paths to maturità and dissertations.

The community on social media
But the Studenti.it team is also supporting final year students on social media, providing information and news about the new form of the exam and helping them to measure up and find solutions to problems related to organisation and teaching. The Facebook page has reached almost 500,000 fans with a group dedicated to the Maturità 2020, to which has been added a new group on Telegram.
To support students in the weeks immediately before the exam and in June during the exam period, the team has developed a format called TG Maturità. This is a programme of live Facebook events to give examinees updates and news about the exams and replies to their most frequent questions. There will also be contributions from a number of guests who will help the candidates with last-minute doubts so that they can calmly face their exam preparation.

The success of the YouTube channel
There has also been a great success for the Youtube channel which has doubled the number of views, thanks to the development of new formats, which join the more traditional video notes. From StudentTalk to StudentTea and tutorials for the oral exam: a series of videos offering useful suggestions and advice for students beyond the didactic content. And then, of course, there is also the participation of authentic stars of digital education, such as Elia Bombardelli with her lessons in mathematics.

After the exams
Studenti.it accompanies students also after the exams, supporting them as they decide on their next steps, with content and targeted tests to orientate their choices and the creation of ad hoc Facebook groups such as Orientamento Università and Test medicina a numero chiuso, which to date have 27,000 and 40,000 members respectively. This is where students can exchange ideas on the best choices for their future, as well as a place to find information about universities, entry tests and receive the latest news on other issues of interest.

Studenti.it, the Mondadori Group brand, leader in the Italian educational sector with 4.3 million unique users per month (Source: Audiweb, March 2019), has recorded an excellent performance on both the site and on social networks during the period of the 2019 Maturità (Italy’s final high school exams).

Supporting students in their studies for more than 20 years, also this year Studenti.it ran non-stop coverage of the exams from 7 am to 8 pm, with real time updates, comments from tutors and experts and mock exams, as well as interviews with students outside schools before and after the written tests, and reaching an absolute record level of traffic. The Maturità Special on the site from 17 to 23 June was followed by 3.6 million unique users, +14% compared with the previous year, with 77% access from smartphones (Source: Google Analytics).

In the first week alone after its release,  the video of Maturandi, the anthem of the 2019 Maturità by Lorenzo Baglioni, an exclusive co-production with Studenti.it, recorded over 800,000 views across all social platforms and on the web site.

An authentic anthem for the students involved in the exams that the artist presented during an event entitled La notte dei maturandi, on Tuesday 18 June at the Mondadori Megastore in Piazza Duomo and in live  streaming on Facebook and YouTube. Some 340,000 people saw the live social coverage of the special talk show presented by Lorenzo Baglioni and the content creator Lea Cuccaroni, with very special guests, such as the influencer Ludovica Pagani, the face of TV’s Le Iene Matteo Viviani, the scientific YouTuber Adrian Fartade, the comedian Filippo Caccamo, the presenter Andrea Delogu, and Alessandro Sansone, the speaker from Radio 105, the media partner of the event, who shared anecdotes, suggestions and advice on the eve of the first written exam.

On the Facebook page, which has 482,000 fans, the Studenti.it team coordinated a group dedicated to the 2019 Maturità with 36,000 subscribers and where students could exchange ideas and useful information about the exams.

An all time record Maturità (the Italian high school exam) season for Studenti.it, the Mondadori Groiup brand that is a point of reference for Italian students. The site, which this year is celebrating its 20^th anniversary, chalked up its best ever traffic figures during the recently concluded period of written exams, confirming its leadership in the education segment.

In the 3-day period from the eve of the exams until the second written paper, Studenti.it recorded double-digit growth, during the live marathon from 19 to 21 June, reaching 2.3 million unique users; there was also a particularly significant boom in access from mobile devices, which in the same days accounted for 73% of the site’s total traffic (source: Google Analytics).

Also of significance was  triple-digit growth on Facebook. The “Maturità 2018” group, coordinated by the Studenti.it team, saw an authentic flood of registrations, reaching a total of 42,000 subscribers (+280% compared with 2017): exam candidates who up until the “night before the exams” continued to interact with each other looking for help and, in turn, offering their support to their peers. Overall, thanks to constant activity on the fan page, in the week of the written exams, Studenti.it content reached 2.4 million users, a figure that rises to 3.8 million when the data for the last month is taken into account. Also in this case an extraordinary performance compared with 2017, with increases of more than 250% (source: Facebook Insights).

So, an increasingly social and digital maturità, made possible also thanks to the quality of video content: in addition to live feeds with experts, psychologists and tutors in preparation for the exams, the big new feature this year was the involvement of webstars and youtubers such as Favij, Frank Matano, Sofia Viscardi and Salvatore Aranzulla, who talked about their experiences with the maturità through live specials on social media and popular video clips. In fact, during the last month, including the exam days, the Studenti.it platforms (Facebook, YouTube and the web site) recorded 4 million video views.

The 20^th June sees the start of the final high school diploma exams in Italy, commonly known as the “maturità”, and once again this year Studenti.it – the Mondadori Group brand leader in Education sector market with 4 million unique users per  month (source: Audiweb, January 2018) – is working with students to help them pass this important moment.

Studenti.it boasts 20 years of experience having been launched in 1998 as a pass-notes database to help students to exchange study materials: the site has grown alongside the Millennials and Generation Z, young people now aged between 10 and 20, who have never known a world without the internet and that are the core audience for the brand. Since the beginning, the site has seen its offer expand enormously, with the addition of content edited by researchers and university professors, a constant flow of news and information about the world of schools, dissertation summaries, exam tools and simulations and a range of other supporting materials, making a total of some 50,000 documents in the archive.

In a now consolidated tradition, also this year, in the days of the written exams (20, 21 and 25 June) Studenti.it will run non-stop live coverage of the maturità from 7am to 8pm: with real-time updates and comments from experts and tutors in different subjects who will provide assessments of the outlines proposed by the Miur, as well as developing simulations to be published at the end of each exam. On the field, the Studenti.it team will interview students outside the schools, before and after the exams, to gather immediate reactions and comments to be added to the flow of news on the site.

Listening to the views and needs of those directly affected is part of the constant efforts made by Studenti.it to get as close as possible to the maturità: for example, online surveys using questionnaires on the site and on social media have in recent months brought together the opinions of more than 52,000 students facing the maturità this year on various issues related to the exam (study techniques, the use of technology, progress assessments, managing nerves, “outlines”), surveys that have been picked up and reproduced by local and national newspapers, as well as on the radio and the web.

An important new feature this year was the involvement of popular webstars, such as Frank Matano, Favij, Sofia Viscardi and Salvatore Aranzulla, who took part in live interviews and video spots on Facebook with a reach that so far has totalled 1 million people: the participants shared news and anecdotes about their experiences of the maturità, along with useful advice and tips for getting through the exam and also dealing with what happens after the exam, when adult life really begins.

Also on Facebook, where the Studenti.it page has over 466,000 fans and continues to grow, a dedicated “Maturità 2018” group has recorded an authentic boom in subscriptions: 40,000 students (three times more than last year, the widest group about the exam in Italy). Through the group, moderated by the Studenti.it team, students can come into contact with each other in the search for tips about the exam, to let off steam in moments of difficulty but also to offer their own creative qualities and share know-how: what will come out in the Italian exam? How to prepare the perfect cover for your dissertation? What software to use? How to set out a conceptual map? How does the credits and bonus system work? Does anyone know the external examiners on my commission? These are just some of the topics that ring round schools across the country in a normal day of students preparing to face the maturità in 2018.

The seasonal peak of traffic is an opportunity for many companies and brands to communicate with a young audience in a qualitative context, also by integrating the site’s social platforms into advertising plans.

Studenti, the web site by Banzai Media (Mondadori Group) market leader in the student segment 4.7 million unique users per month (Audiweb, May 2016), is now online in an innovative version completely dedicated to study support: with improved functionality and a new look, the new Studenti is characterised by  mobile first usability.

The new release was conceived to make it easier to use and easier to find the most useful and relevant content for study topics: the offer has been divided by areas of interest and, in turn, rigorously split into subjects and topics, with special attention to the most frequently searched items.

“The mission of Studenti has always been to help students with their school work and to pass their exams, as well as orient themselves in their post-diploma choices. Thanks to this new release, Studenti strengthens its value proposition, becoming even more useful and focusing on innovative content and services,” declared Andrea Santagata, the Mondadori Group’s deputy general manager of Magazines Italy.

“The world of young people and millennials is a premium target for our advertisers and in the publishing context Studenti is a natural choice for them. With this new release we will also increase users’ participation and involvement; in fact native formats and engagement are among the property’s driving elements in its aim to be mobile first in terms of day to day use,” underlined Davide Mondo, chief executive of Mediamond.

An update and re-invigorated editorial offer

Within each subject, students can identify the most relevant didactic issues. The new organisation of the content also makes it possible to  look at the subjects in different levels of detail: advanced filters and related allow users to highlight a range of important conceptual connections.

In addition to the didactic content of Studenti, traditionally made up of notes, thousands of previously prepared mini-dissertations, a rich selection of video-lessons and a series of interactive modules specifically for the teaching of mathematics for high school students, is a range of new quality content. In fact the editorial content of Studenti has been enhanced with contributions from graduate students and university professors with the aim of providing students with exhaustive and accurate materials: background notes by teachers have been gathered together in structured and indexed files including summaries, glossaries and margin notes, in order to give an even better study experience.

The offer is completed with study guides and a range of interactive tests: those for orientation and matriculation, as well as simulations of multiple choice tests and exams in various subjects.

Thanks to responsive graphics, the new Studenti is easy to use on both a PC or a mobile device, effectively supporting students in a range of different situations.

Studenti.it is online at:

Link : www.studenti.it
Facebook: facebook.com/Studenti.it