As Admission Director, you’re responsible for keeping your families, alumni, and faculty engaged with your school. You do this through multiple communication channels, which most likely includes social media sites. If you take advantage of free social media platforms, your plan probably implements Facebook as a resource for connecting your school’s events and news to your audiences. Significant changes have been made to Facebook over the last year. Are you maximizing these advances?
Before you create your next post, there are questions you should be asking yourself.
- Do you have a clear idea of what you want/need to achieve from Facebook?
- Are people engaged with your page?
- How does your school’s Facebook page content compare to your competitors?
You post upcoming events, invite alumni, and share photos that capture your school’s spirit. But, is what you’re sharing capturing your intended readers? Evaluating your social media strategies early in the school year can help set you up for a successful season. These tips will help you get started.
Identify Your Communication Goals.
Before you post anything, you should know what you to gain from your message—a communication strategy. (For more information about creating a social media plan, read our recent article, Start Off The New School Year With a Stellar Social Media Plan) Ask yourself what your goals are.
- Are you trying to inform parents of a new app that might expose their child to questionable content?
- Do you want to share images from the latest alumni reunion?
- Is there an emergency in the neighborhood?
- Has your school’s football team just won the regional circuit?
Before posting to your page, stop and ask yourself:
- What is it that you’re trying to convey?
- Does it reflect your school’s mission?
- Does it lend itself to comments or is it simply an update?
- Does it serve your followers—entertainment, insight, information, etc.?
- Why are you sharing this article/comment/photo?
- Are your messages consistent across different platforms?
If you want to maintain a constant presence on Facebook, you’ll want to make your posts as interesting as possible. Facebook’s algorithm is designed to track user behavior, and presents content in their feeds according to the preferences they have displayed. For example, if your followers tend to click on more videos than any other sort of share, their feed will show more posts with videos. There is no way for you to know what your fans favor, so the best plan is to share a variety of messages—images, videos, plain text, and links to articles. This strategy offers something for everyone, and will keep your fans engaged with your activity.
More important than how many followers or fans your page has, is that people are tuned in to what you’re sharing. Going beyond offering diverse content, there is a feature now offered to promote posts. If part of your communication strategy is to gain the attention of new families, this might be an option worth investigating. For $15–$5 a day for three days—you can promote important messages you need to share with more people. Such posts might be an upcoming fund raiser, an open house, or ticket sales for the school play.
Engage Your Audience
We’ve already mentioned posting different types of content to reach more of your fans, hence keeping them engaged with what you’re saying. Now that you have their attention, you’ll want them to take action—interact with your posts.
People are more likely to react when they’re prompted. Here are some ideas on how to add a call-to-action to your posts.
- Ask questions about your posts. For example, you’re hosting an open house and need to spread the word. Why not follow up with a funny clip of an open house gone wrong from YouTube, a video your students made, or ask your fans to share their experiences at a previous event your school hosted?
- Post a survey. Voting is one of the easiest ways to engage your fans. People like to share their perspective. As long as it’s something light, it could be a perfect way to draw more visitors to your page. For example, your students are having an art show. Ask your Facebook family to vote on their favorite. Or if you’re planning your next alumni event and have found several locations, ask your alumni to vote on their choice.
- Recognize your Facebook friends. Facebook now allows for milestones. In addition to noting your school’s important growths, don’t forget to mention your faithful readers. Post a milestone thanking alumni when you reach 100 attendees for the upcoming event, applauding everyone who helped out with your school’s community service or all your teachers for a great in-service day.
Know What Your Competition Is Doing.
Smart marketing is always being aware of what your competition is doing. From time to time, visit your competitors’ Facebook pages. Take into consideration what they’re talking about and how their friends and families are interacting with them. Copying what they’re doing is not a good idea—it is a poor reflection of your efforts. But, if they’re doing something extremely well, it might give you a few ideas on how to better improve your communications.
Keep in mind that what you do online is visible. We advise peeking in on your competition from time to time, but strongly advise against communicating with them or their families in any way that could put your school at risk. Take the same precautions online as you teach your students.
Additional ISM resources of interest
Private School News Vol. 11 No. 5 Start Off The New School Year With a Stellar Social Media Plan
ISM Monthly Update for Admission Officers Vol. 10 No. 1 Communicating Through Social Media
Private School News Vol. 10 No. 4 Social Media Disasters: Costs, Dangers, and Quagmires
Webinar: Building Your School’s Social Media Marketing Plan
