And social media is a great channel to market your school through, all while keeping your current parents updated with what’s happening in your school. Many schools have separate class Twitter accounts, but how do you get the most of out them? How should you be using them?
In this blog, we’re sharing some best practice tips for school’s using social media.
First, find out which platforms are most popular among your parents
Before you spend time creating content for multiple social platforms, first figure out which platforms you can bin and which you should consider. Send a short survey out to your parents simply asking them which platform they favour for school communication and why.
If there’s an overwhelming majority for a particular channel, focus your time and effort on that channel. There’s no point wasting your time posting to Facebook, for example, if no one is actively engaging with your content.
What should your school share on social media?
Social media is a great way to keep in touch with parents. You can share all kinds of information, such as reminders about upcoming inset days or class-specific trips; you can also share pictures taken of the children throughout the day by using a private Twitter account followed by approved people only. You can also attract prospective parents by sharing exam results and school open days.
When the pandemic hit last year, it was reported that some schools only shared information that their school was closing via Twitter. As you can imagine, parents who didn’t have access to Twitter or hadn’t checked their account weren’t aware of the closure.
Any important information should be directly messaged out to parents, preferably before you share it on social media.
Making posting part of your routine
If you can, set aside a block of time in your diary to bulk schedule social media posts each week; the quicker you establish a routine, the more second nature it’ll become. You can do this using Hootsuite or Buffer — both have a free plan, so no budget spend required. With Buffer, you can add up to three social profiles, and Hootsuite, you can add two, all completely free of charge.
With scheduling tools like Hootsuite and Buffer, you can set up school name monitoring so you don’t miss a post whenever someone mentions you, responds to your post, or direct messages you.
Integrate your social media accounts into your website
Did you know that your social media accounts can be integrated into your app and website?
We can integrate your social channels so even parents without a Twitter account can easily access your school or class tweets through your parent app or school website. We build the integration into our website design, where we design beautiful, functional and compliant school websites for our customers without sacrificing design.
Intrigued? View our school website work.
If you’re looking for ways to help your school save some pennies, check out our free savings calculator and see how much a school app can save you.