Why Staying Current on Social Media is Key to Successful School Marketing
Social media can be an incredibly powerful and cost-effective tool for marketing your school, giving you the ability to showcase your brand to a worldwide audience. Even better, you’re using tools which are right at your fingertips - quite literally! However, social media is also an ever-evolving and fast-paced world, and the best ways to use it effectively change constantly as well.
That’s why it’s crucial to be aware of trends, features, updates – and even entirely new platforms - in order to best leverage your social media marketing strategy.
Sound like a tall order? Not sure where to start? Read on for our top tips and recommendations!
Keep an eye on trends
Being aware of social media trends, and how you can incorporate them into your marketing, is a great way to build additional awareness around your school. Harnessing trends can extend your reach and allow you to be visible to a higher number of social media users. Why? Because social media algorithms LOVE trending content. (Don’t worry, we’re not saying you need to start doing crazy TikTok dances!)
Ways to incorporate trends into your content can include using trending audio in your Instagram Reels and Stories, having teachers or students take part in a trending challenge, or using a trending hashtag – provided it’s relevant to your audience.
How do you find out social media trends, we hear you ask? It’s as simple as this: If you’re scrolling through your feed, you’re most likely being exposed to trends. Any styles of content that you notice repeatedly constitute trends, and potential inspiration for your own content.
Be aware, however, that not every trend will be a good fit for your brand or relevant to your audience, so don’t jump on the bandwagon just for the sake of it. Ensure that it furthers your school’s marketing strategy in some way (e.g. by raising awareness, showcasing your unique selling points, or educating your audience).
Utilise new features and updates
There are updates and new features being introduced to social media platforms constantly. Enhanced editing tools, more detailed insights into the habits of your online following, new and creative ways to engage with your audience – there’s always something new on offer to explore and decide how it could benefit you and your marketing needs.
There are various ways of keeping up with all the news on the social media platforms you’re using. Often, the platform itself will notify you once the feature has rolled out, but you can keep ahead of the game by monitoring your chosen platforms’ own official blogs, such as the LinkedIn blog and the Instagram blog, for news directly from the source, or by following accounts such as Instagram’s @creators if you prefer bite-sized updates as part of your daily social media intake.
Although it can seem overwhelming at times trying to keep up-to-date, it’s worth staying informed, as these updates often give you greater control and more options when it comes to the length and type of content you can post.
Refresh Your Skillset
If social media isn’t your full-time job, it’s hard to stay on top of the ‘what works’, ‘what’s new’ and ‘what should we be doing’ of social media- land. Investing in regular training, keeping your social media skillset fresh, exploring new perspectives, or even up-skilling your existing marketing knowledge to focus specifically on social media marketing, will reap rewards in not only your social media marketing statistics, but your admissions pipeline. Joining a monthly, education marketing training hub such as Education Marketing Collective can be a time and cost-effective way to not only stay on top of trends and new features with monthly updates, but learn how to harness them for YOUR school with monthly training sessions. (Attenger Digital is a Partner Member of Education Marketing Collective). Or if you prefer your training all at once, take a look at our own social media for schools training courses here!
Consider which platforms you should be using
Remember when Myspace was all the rage? What about Vine? Social media platforms sometimes take the world by storm and then, almost as quickly, lose popularity. Whilst some platforms have a longer-term appeal than others, it’s important to be aware of which ones your target audience are using, and not be afraid to try something new if it’s relevant to your audience. We’re not advocating jumping on every trendy new platform out there. We’re also definitely not recommending trying to maintain a presence on all the platforms – it’s much better to choose two or three, produce high-quality content and be engaged with your target audience than to try and be on every platform. But the key thing to remember is that you need to be wherever your target market is. For example, for most schools, it’s currently important to have an Instagram presence, because that’s where Millennial parents (and some older students) are – something we’ve covered in more detail in our previous post, 5 Reasons Schools NEED to be using Instagram.
Seem like a lot to remember? Maybe that’s because it is! Social media marketing is a skill which takes research and practise to master, but it doesn’t end there. It’s a cliché, but the social media world is one where the only constant is change, so continually learning and evolving your approach is absolutely crucial in order to market effectively. It can also be hugely helpful to invest in some professional training, by experts whose job it is to keep on top of the ever-shifting sands that are social media. If you’re feeling overwhelmed and need some help honing your digital marketing skills, we offer a range of courses to reinvent the way you use social media—and help you convert followers into student enrolments.